Soil mechanics Lab Report Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Soil mechanics - Lab Report Examplen-drained and drained were down the stairstaken on the undisturbed blemish samples to determine the shear strength parameters under drained and drained condition for the given undercoat sample from where the building will be constructed. Basing on the results, it is evident that the bearing capacity of the silt soil was much little as compared to the cohesion less soil ultimate bearing capacity. In this regard, the building codes permit higher bearing pressure for less cohesion soils like sand as compared to that of plastic soil (silt).Tri- axial tests are laboratory testing techniques mostly applied to obtain shear strength parameters for different characters of soil under un-drained and drained condition (Alshibli and Sture 2000). Conventional test entails a cylindrical soil sample which is subjected to radial underlinees as well as axial displacement or controlled increases in axial stresses. Usually, the cylindrical soil specimen is of 20 0m height and 100 mm diameter. Preparation of specimen is based on the type of soil. For shear failure, the soil grains usually slide over each other along the failure surface hence there is no crushing of grains. At failure, along the failure surface, the shear stress reaches the shear strength. Basically, soils are known to be frictional materials. The strength is based on the stress applied whereby this stress is controlled by effective stresses and here water pressure is needed (Alshibli and Sture 2000). Also soil strength is based on drainage whereby different strengths can be measured for a certain soil that can twist around at a given constant volume (un-drained) as well as deform without having pore pressure that is excess (drained). Angle of friction () and Cohesion (c) are generally not soil constant parameters. They are based on the soil initial state and the loading type (drained or un-drained) (Widulinski et al., 2009).The specimen was enclosed vertically with a thin r ubber membrane then later spue between two rigid ends in the pressure