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Basic soil properties and parameters can be subdivided into physical, index, and
engineering categories. One of the youngest disciplines of civil engineering, soil
mechanics involving the study of soil, its behavior and application as an engineering
material. In soil there are three kinds of common composition, namely the solid, liquid
and gas.
Terzaghi (1948) once said, “Soil Mechanics is the application of laws of mechanics and
hydraulics to engineering problems dealing with sediments and other unconsolidated
accumulations of solid particles produced by the mechanical and chemical disintegration
of rocks regardless of whether or not they contain an admixture of organic constituent.”
In general, the soil physical properties include mass density, particle sizes, specific
gravity, and water content. Within this physical properties, these are the important terms
used in soil mechanics (as below):
Water content of a soil sample represents the weight of free water contained in the
sample expressed as a percentage of its dry weight.
Degree of saturation of the soil sample is the ratio, often expressed as percentage,
of the volume of free water contained in the sample to its total volume of voids and
has an important influence on soil behavior.
Void ratio to the volume occupied by the soil particles defines the void ratio, in
other words the volume of voids in a mixture divided by the volume of solids.
Porosity which is a measure of the relative amount of openings, voids (air or
gases), is the ratio of void volume to the total volume of soil and it represents the
storage capacity of the geologic material.
Specific gravity of a substance is a comparison of its density to that of water.
The Phases Relationship in Soil