Reappraisal of linear shrinkage test for plasticity index determination and classification of fine-grained soils

Abstract

Among the multitude of alternate plasticity index (PI) estimation proposals, empirical correlations based on the linear shrinkage (LS) test, originally proposed in the 1967 edition of the British BS 1377 standard, seem to be gaining increased attention. This study has two main aims: (i) re-examining LS-based correlations for PI estimation to better understand their true potentials and/or limitations; and (ii) investigating the possibility of employing LS, as a proxy for the standard PI, for fine-grained soil classification. To this end, comprehensive statistical analyses were performed on the largest and most diverse database assembled of its kind, entailing PI:LS measurements for 265 differ..