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Soil mechanics is a branch of soil physics and applied mechanics that describes the behavior of soils. It differs from fluid mechanics and solid mechanics in the sense that soils consist of a heterogeneous mixture of fluids (usually air and water) and particles (usually clay , silt , sand , and gravel ) but soil may also contain organic solids ...
Water content or moisture content is the quantity of water contained in a material, such as soil (called soil moisture), rock, ceramics, crops, or wood. Water content is used in a wide range of scientific and technical areas, and is expressed as a ratio, which can range from 0 (completely dry) to the value of the materials' porosity at saturation.
Water retention curve is the relationship between the water content, θ, and the soil water potential, ψ. The soil moisture curve is characteristic for different types of soil, and is also called the soil moisture characteristic. It is used to predict the soil water storage, water supply to the plants (field capacity) and soil aggregate stability.
But as the stress approaches its peak value, the volumetric strain starts to increase. After some more shear, the soil sample has a larger volume than when the test was started. The amount of dilation depends strongly on the initial density of the soil. In general, the denser the soil, the greater the amount of volume expansion under shear.
The Atterberg limits are a basic measure of the critical water contents of a fine-grained soil: its shrinkage limit, plastic limit, and liquid limit. Depending on its water content, soil may appear in one of four states: solid, semi-solid, plastic and liquid. In each state, the consistency and behavior of soil are different, and consequently so ...
The Proctor compaction test is a laboratory method of experimentally determining the optimal moisture content at which a given soil type will become most dense and achieve its maximum dry density. The test is named in honor of Ralph Roscoe Proctor [ de ] , who in 1933 showed that the dry density of a soil for a given compactive effort depends ...
Soil physics is the study of soil's physical properties and processes. It is applied to management and prediction under natural and managed ecosystems . Soil physics deals with the dynamics of physical soil components and their phases as solids , liquids , and gases .
Field capacity is the amount of soil moisture or water content held in the soil after excess water has drained away and the rate of downward movement has decreased. This usually occurs two to three days after rain or irrigation in pervious soils of uniform structure and texture.