Detailed Soil Investigation of the Proposed Agricultural Engineering Department Federal Polytechnic, Kaura Namoda

Abstract

This research was limited to find some index as well as engineering properties of the collected soil samples. The properties tests include; moisture content, particle size distribution (sieve analysis), atterbberg limit, and specific gravity test. Similarly, the engineering properties tests conducted include; permeability and triaxial test. From the index properties test, the results obtained from trial pit 1,2 and and 3, the moisture content values are 0.30%, 2.19% and 2.68% respectively. The particle size distribution test (sieve analysis) values are 41.63 and 34.47. the result of the atterbeg limit shows that the liquid plasticity index values ranges from 8.5% to 25.4%. the maximum dry density of the soil samples ranges from 1.77g/cm3 to 1.88g/cm3 and the optimum moisture content ranges from 12% to 14% for AASHTO. Similarly, engineering properties: the specific gravity values are 2.3, 2.36 and 2.26 for the trial pits respectively. Permeability test was also found to be 4.358 x 10-4 6.619 x 10-4 respectively by the triaxial test conducted yield bearing capacity of the soil to be qu = 343.30KN/m2, 440.31 656.34KN/m2 for the trial pits respectively, furthermore, the depth of foundation was calculated and found to be (Df) = 87.00/18.33 x (1-sin24)/ (1+sin24)2 = 1.42m.