In: Civil Engineering
The relative density is used only for coarse grained and not fine grained soil is due to the following reasons:
1.Engineering properties such as strength and compressibility of coarse-grained soil are governed by the grain-size of the particles and their structural arrangement whereas Engineering properties of fine grained soil are controlled by mineralogical factors and moisture content.Here, in case of relative density we seek to measure the structural arrangement of the soil.
2. The coarse grained soil shear strength depends on the values whereas those for fine grained soil depends upon the Cohesion values. The Relative density is correlated to the values and not to the Cohesion values.
Relative density(%) Angle of shearing resistance(degrees)
0-15
15-35 28-30
35-65 30-36
65-85 36-41
85-100