Use of fall-cone flow index for soil classification: a new plasticity chart

Abstract

Use of the Casagrande-style plasticity chart to classify fine-grained soils using Atterberg's liquid and plastic limits is ubiquitous in geotechnical engineering. This classification is dependent on the thread-rolling and Casagrande-cup tests, which are both more operator dependent than the fall-cone liquid limit test. This paper shows that the slope of the data acquired during the fall-cone liquid limit test (the fall-cone flow index) can be used to redraw the plasticity chart, thus allowing classification of fine-grained soils to be achieved solely from fall-cone liquid limit data.