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Concept
Atterberg limits
Summary
The Atterberg limits are a basic measure of the critical water contents of a fine-grained soil: its shrinkage limit, plastic limit, and liquid limit.
Depending on its water content, soil may appear in one of four states: solid, semi-solid, plastic and liquid. In each state, the consistency and behavior of soil are different, and consequently so are its engineering properties. Thus, the boundary between each state can be defined based on a change in the soil's behavior. The Atterberg limits can be used to distinguish between silt and clay and to distinguish between different types of silts and clays. The water content at which soil changes from one state to the other is known as consistency limits, or Atterberg's limit.
These limits were created by Albert Atterberg, a Swedish chemist and agronomist, in 1911. They were later refined by Arthur Casagrande, an Austrian-born American geotechnical engineer and a close collaborator of Karl Terzaghi (both pioneers of soil mechanics).
Distinctions in soils are used in assessing soil which is to have a structure built on them. Soils when wet retain water, and some expand in volume (smectite clay). The amount of expansion is related to the ability of the soil to take in water and its structural make-up (the type of minerals present: clay, silt, or sand). These tests are mainly used on clayey or silty soils since these are the soils which expand and shrink when the moisture content varies. Clays and silts interact with water and thus change sizes and have varying shear strengths. Thus these tests are used widely in the preliminary stages of designing any structure to ensure that the soil will have the correct amount of shear strength and not too much change in volume as it expands and shrinks with different moisture contents.
The shrinkage limit (SL) is the water content where further loss of moisture will not result in more volume reduction. The test to determine the shrinkage limit is ASTM International D4943. The shrinkage limit is much less commonly used than the liquid and plastic limits.
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Related concepts (3)
Soil mechanics
Soil mechanics is a branch of soil physics and applied mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids (usually air and water) and particles (usually clay, silt, sand, and gravel) but soil may also contain organic solids and other matter. Along with rock mechanics, soil mechanics provides the theoretical basis for analysis in geotechnical engineering, a subdiscipline of civil engineering, and engineering geology, a subdiscipline of geology.
Geotechnical engineering
Geotechnical engineering, also known as geotechnics, is the branch of civil engineering concerned with the engineering behavior of earth materials. It uses the principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to solve its engineering problems. It also relies on knowledge of geology, hydrology, geophysics, and other related sciences. Geotechnical engineering has applications in military engineering, mining engineering, petroleum engineering, coastal engineering, and offshore construction.
Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, Al2Si2O5(OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet but can be hardened through firing. Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide. Clay is the oldest known ceramic material. Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery.
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The goal of this course is to introduce the student to modern numerical methods for the solution of coupled & non-linear problems arising in geo-mechanics / geotechnical engineering.
MATH-212: Analyse numérique et optimisation
L'étudiant apprendra à résoudre numériquement divers problèmes mathématiques. Les propriétés théoriques de ces
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