Soil structure is usually defined as the arrangement and state of aggregation of soil particles is a soil mass. Soil structure is an important factor which influences many soil properties, such as Permeability, compressibility and shear strength etc. The following types of soil structure are generally recognised:
- Single grained
- Honeycomb
- Flocculent
- Dispersed
- Coarse-grained skeleton
- Cohesive Matrix
Single Grained:
An arrangement composed of individual soil particles.This type of structure is found in case of coarse grained soil deposits. The major forces causing their deposition is gravitational forces and the surface forces are too small to produce any effect. There will be particles to particles contact on the deposit.
Honeycomb:
It is an arrangement of soil particles having a comparatively loose, stable structure resembling a honeycomb.
This type of structure is associated with silt deposits....
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Soil structure is usually defined as the arrangement and state of aggregation of soil particles is a soil mass. Soil structure is an important factor which influences many soil properties, such as Permeability, compressibility and shear strength etc. The following types of soil structure are generally recognised:
- Single grained
- Honeycomb
- Flocculent
- Dispersed
- Coarse-grained skeleton
- Cohesive Matrix
Single Grained:
An arrangement composed of individual soil particles.This type of structure is found in case of coarse grained soil deposits. The major forces causing their deposition is gravitational forces and the surface forces are too small to produce any effect. There will be particles to particles contact on the deposit.
Honeycomb:
It is an arrangement of soil particles having a comparatively loose, stable structure resembling a honeycomb.
This type of structure is associated with silt deposits. The major forces causing their deposition are gravitational force and surface forces.
Soil with Honeycomb structure are loose and have high void ratio. They can support loads only under static conditions. Under vibration and shocks, the structure collapse and large deformation takes place.
Flocculent:
An arrangement composed of flocs" role="presentation" >flocs of soil particles instead of individual soil particles.
Flocculated structures generally occurs in clay. In case of flocculated structure, there will be edge to edge and edge to face contact between the particles. This type of formation is due to the net electrical forces(attractive) between the adjacent particles at the time of deposition.
Soil with flocculated structure are light in weight and have very high void ratio and water content. However, these soils are quite strong and can resist external forces because of strong bond due to attraction between the particles.
Dispersed:
Dispersed structure occurs in remoulded clay. The particles develop more or less parallel orientation. When clay soil are transported from one place to another place by nature or man and get remoulded, dispersed structure develops in clay. Remoulding converts the edge to face orientation to edge to edge orientation. The dispersed structure is formed in nature when there is a net repulsive force between particles.
The soil in dispersed structure have high compressibility, low shear strength and low permeability.
Coarse-grained skeleton:
A coarse grained skeleton is a composite structure which is formed when the soil contains particles of different types. When the amount of bulky, cohesion-less particles is large compared with that of fine grained clayey particles, the bulky grains are in particle to particle contact. These particles forms a skeleton.
As long as the soil structure is not disturbed, acparse grained skeleton can take heavy loads without much deformation.
Cohesive matrix(clay matrix) structure:
It is an arrangement in which a particle-to-particle contact of coarse fraction is not possible.
Clay-matrix structure is also a composite structure formed by soils of different types. However, in this case, the amount of clay particles is very large compared to bulky coarse grained particles. The clay forms a matrix in which bulky grains appear floating without touching one another.