Definition
A soil is a loose, unconsolidated agglomeration of mineral particles that can be easily separated by hand pressure or by immersion in water (Johnson and DeGraff 1988) and that can be excavated without blasting (West 1995). Geologically, soils are the products of mechanical and/or chemical weathering of rocks (Marshak 2013).
Introduction
Soils constitute one of the most widely encountered materials in engineering construction. Many engineering structures are either made of soil material (earth dams and levees) or founded on soils (buildings) or located within soils (tunnels and other underground structures). The design and stability of these structures depends on the engineering properties of soils involved.
Based on their origin, soils are categorized as residual or transported (Holtz et al. 2011). Residual soils remain at their place of origin, whereas transported soils are carried away from their...
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References
American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) (2010) Annual book of standards. Section 4, Construction, 4.08, Soil and Rock (1). Conshohocken, ASTM.
Casagrande, A (1948) Classification and identification of soils, vol 113. American Society of Civil Engineers Transactions. American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, pp 901–930.
Fetter CW (1994) Applied hydrogeology, 3rd edn. Maxwell Macmillan International, New York, 691 p
Hazen A (1911) Discussion of “Dams on Sand Foundations” by A.C. Koening. Trans ASCE 73:199–203
Holtz RD, Kovacs WD, Sheahan TC (2011) An introduction to geotechnical engineering, 2nd edn. Pearson, New York, 853 p
Johnson RB, DeGraff JV (1988) Principles of engineering geology. Wiley, New York, 497 p
Marshak S (2013) Essentials of geology. W W. Norton & Company, New York, 567 p
Mitchell JK (1993) Fundamentals of soil behavior. Wiley, New York, 437 p
West TR (1995) Geology applied to engineering. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 560 p
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Shakoor, A. (2016). Characterization of Soils. In: Bobrowsky, P., Marker, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Engineering Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12127-7_48-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12127-7_48-1
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