The document describes an experiment to determine the undrained shear strength of soils using unconfined compression tests. Students are tasked with investigating the shear strength of three soil samples. The procedure involves placing soil specimens in a compression testing machine and recording the load and deformation until failure. Test data and calculations are presented. The undrained shear strength (Cu) is determined to be 52.55 kPa for soil 1 and 602 kPa for soils 2 and 3 by plotting the stress-strain curves and Mohr's circles. The document concludes the test is useful for determining the undrained shear strength of clays and discusses sources of error in the test method.
The document describes an experiment to determine the undrained shear strength of soils using unconfined compression tests. Students are tasked with investigating the shear strength of three soil samples. The procedure involves placing soil specimens in a compression testing machine and recording the load and deformation until failure. Test data and calculations are presented. The undrained shear strength (Cu) is determined to be 52.55 kPa for soil 1 and 602 kPa for soils 2 and 3 by plotting the stress-strain curves and Mohr's circles. The document concludes the test is useful for determining the undrained shear strength of clays and discusses sources of error in the test method.
The document describes an experiment to determine the undrained shear strength of soils using unconfined compression tests. Students are tasked with investigating the shear strength of three soil samples. The procedure involves placing soil specimens in a compression testing machine and recording the load and deformation until failure. Test data and calculations are presented. The undrained shear strength (Cu) is determined to be 52.55 kPa for soil 1 and 602 kPa for soils 2 and 3 by plotting the stress-strain curves and Mohr's circles. The document concludes the test is useful for determining the undrained shear strength of clays and discusses sources of error in the test method.
The document describes an experiment to determine the undrained shear strength of soils using unconfined compression tests. Students are tasked with investigating the shear strength of three soil samples. The procedure involves placing soil specimens in a compression testing machine and recording the load and deformation until failure. Test data and calculations are presented. The undrained shear strength (Cu) is determined to be 52.55 kPa for soil 1 and 602 kPa for soils 2 and 3 by plotting the stress-strain curves and Mohr's circles. The document concludes the test is useful for determining the undrained shear strength of clays and discusses sources of error in the test method.
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1.
INTRODUCTION
Level 2 laboratory activities refer to the condition where only the problem is guided and given. Students are required to find the ways & means and provide the answers to the given assignment using the group creativity and innovativeness. The activity will enable the students to appreciate independent learning and prepare them for a much harder task of open ended laboratory activities. In this laboratory activity, the students need to know shear strength of a soil. It is maximum resistance to shearing stresses. It is usually considered to be equal to the shear stress at failure on the failure plane. The shear strength of soil mainly consists of the resistance due to interlocking of particle and friction between individual particles at their contact point i.e. internal friction and the resistance due to inter particle forces which tend to hold the particles together in a soil mass, what so called cohesion.
1.2
OBJECTIVES
To determine the undrained shear strength parameters of soil using unconfined
compression test.
1.3
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the laboratory activities, students would be able to:
1.
Acquire the necessary skill in conducting test using appropriate tools for
unconfined compression test.
2.
Determination and analyses shear strength parameters from the test.
3.
Work in a group to produce the relevant technical report.
2.0
PROBLEM STATEMENT
UCT is a special case of triaxial compression, carried out at zero cell pressure. Since only one Mohr circle can be drawn, the test is only applicable to fully saturated non-fissured clays, and only the undrained strength can be measured. As a group, you are required to investigate the shear strength parameters of a given soil sample.
4.2 DISCUSSION The unconfined compression test is usually used for measurement of an undrained strength of cohesive soil because of the simplicity of the test technique. This test, however, is inapplicable for such apecimens as crack clay, very solid clay, and clayey soil which contains extra fraction of sand. In these cases, an other strength test method such as the triaxial compression test, must be applied. In this paper, result from the unconfined compression test for some cohesive soils were compressive test on the same soils for the purpose of investigating the characteristics of the unconfined compression test.
The advantage of doing unconfined compression test is without any
calculation the confining pressure 3 is equal to 0. From the test result we get the maximum unconfined compression strength (qu) is determined, using qu = 1 and 3 is equal to 0 plot in graph where normal stress versus shear stress to determine the undrained strength Cu where Cu = qu/2 of the unconfined compression strength we obtained.
The common laboratory errors for unconfined compression test are
getting wrong reading from dial gauge during the test was running. Other than that, the soil sample prepared is too wet also the error of the unconfined compression test. Besides, the insensitivity of measurements at low strains due to high early soil stiffness is one of the errors. The application of the load to the soil sample was not equally either to fast or too slow and make that one of the errors.
4.3 CONCLUSION From the laboratory testing investigation on unconfined compressive strength of soil , the following concluding remarks are drawn. The unconfined compression test is a type of unconsolidated undrained test that is commonly
used for clay specimens. In this test, the confining pressure is 0. An axial load is rapidly applied to the specimen to cause failure. At failure, the total load minor principal stress is zero. So, the undrained shear strength parameters of soil using unconfined compression test are
