An investigation on liquid limit of clays by differently shaped penetration cones

Determination of soil consistency is one of the most applied test methods in soil mechanics. The Atterberg Limits of the soils give us considerable information about the behavior of those soils in water saturated condition. There are two different ways to determine Liquid Limit of soils which are "Casagrande method" or "Fall cone test method". In this study, Fall Cone Test method was applied, which has less operator dependency. During the tests, two different types of clays was used. To study the relationship between conic penetration's values and water contents, 15 different types of conic heads, which have different weights and shapes, were used on those clay specimens between a set of penetrations of 0 to 40 mm to conduct Fall Cone Tests. Relationships between conic penetration values and water contents were also determined during studies and obtained results were all given in the content of this study. In this study, the effect of different conic heads on conic penetration was researched by use of 15 different cones. 12 of the cones, which have different shapes and different weights, were ordered by Prof. Necdet TÜRK. The other conic heads used in the tests were similar as in the BS1377 with additional head weights. The outcome of this study gives a comparison between the conic penetration results obtained by all those conic heads were used in Fall Cone Tests, which all have the BS1377-2's 30 plus or minus 1 degrees head incline and 80,00 plus or minus 0,1 g weight standards.