Effects of Soil and Air Drying Methods on Soil Plasticity of Different Cities of Pakistan

Atterberg Limits were initially defined in 1911, by Albert Atterberg, a Swedish scientist. Their purposes are to classifying cohesive soils and determine engineering properties of soils. According to ASTM, all the soils tested by Atterberg limits should be oven dried, it is because drying the soils in different degree will alter their properties significantly. Some of the physical properties of soils will undergo changes that appear to be permanent. Therefore, the soil samples should be in natural or air-dried form. However, in reality, due to time constraint and other factors, many will run the tests by using soil samples that are prepared by oven drying method. They assumed that there is no difference between the results of two types of drying method. However, in reality, the properties of soil will be affected and thus give a misleading result. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of two drying methods, air-drying method and oven drying method, on the soil plasticity. Six soil samples from different cities were tested. These tests include sieve analysis, specific gravity test, hydrometer analysis, Plastic limit and liquid limit test. Conclusively, the oven drying method could not replace