Soil is one of the very important engineering materials. Determination of soil conditions is the most significant task in every civil engineering activity. Properties of the soil can be determined by both field and laboratory test methods. It is critical to quantify the various properties of soil in order to predict its behaviour under different loading conditions for the safe design of structures. The soil mechanics and foundation engineering laboratory is a compulsory and basic undergraduate course, where introduction to Geotechnical Engineering will be provided and also for graduate level research students.

The use of the laboratory allows the students to understand the complexity in the information associated with the laboratory experiments and also to exercise the same in numerous ways in the web which is not easily experimented in the traditional laboratory. Within the laboratory experiments, the students can explore the experimental procedures to identify the behaviour of soil for particular loading and able to understand results.

The main objectives of developing the soil mechanics and foundation engineering lab are:

1. To carry out all soil mechanics fundamental experiments according to standards.
2. Analyze and interpret experimental data.
3. To understand the techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice.

Equipments:-

1. Mechanical balance (capacity 10 kg)     
2. Digital balance                                             
3. Unconfined compression testing machine                
4. Direct shear test apparatus
5. Triaxial shear test apparatus
6. CBR test apparatus                         
7. Permeability test apparatus                         
8. Compaction test apparatus                           
9. Pycnometer                                                      
10. Liquid limit apparatus                                   
11. Shrinkage limit apparatus                            
12. Sand replacement apparatus                        
13. Consolidation apparatus                               
14. Core cutter apparatus                                   
15. Sample extractor                                           

List of Experiments:-

1. Determination of Specific Gravity.
2. Field density test.
3. Determination of particle size distribution of soil
   1. Sieve Analysis.
   2. Wet Analysis
4. Determination of Atterberg’s limit.
5. Permeability test, variable and constant head.
6. Standard proctor compaction test.
7. Direct shear test.
8. Triaxial compression test.
9. Consolidation test.
10. Static cone penetration test.
11. Standard penetration test.

Link for Virtual Lab:-

http://home.iitk.ac.in/~madhav/geolab.html
http://deploy.virtual-labs.ac.in/labs/eerc05/index.html#