The impact of a test method on the liquid limit of the selected cohesive soils

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The research presented in this paper aimed at the determination of the impact of a test method on the liquid limit of the selected cohesive soils with different content of clay fraction: loosely cohesive – clayey medium sand, moderately cohesive on the border of loosely cohesive – coarse silt and firmly cohesive – silty clay. Liquid limit was determined by the following methods: Casagrande, Vasiliev and the cone penetrometer. It was stated, that the values of the liquid limit of the tested soils determined by various methods were different, which significantly affected the assessment of their plasticity and consistency. According to the standard PKN-CEN ISO/TS 17892-2:2009, the liquid limit should be determined with the cone penetrometer, whereas the alternative is Casagrande’s method. The conducted tests showed, that in the case of cohesive soils containing up to 10–11% of clay fraction, the differences between the values of the liquid limit determined with the cone penetrometer and the Casagrande’s method were relatively small and equaled 1–2%, therefore both methods are correct. In the case of cohesive soils containing more than 20% of clay fraction, differences between the values of the liquid limit determined with the cone penetrometer and the Casagrande’s method were slightly higher than in the previous case, and equaled approximately 4%. In those cases, determination of the liquid limit can be performed both using the first or the second method, though the above-cited standard recommends the cone penetrometer method.