Geotechnical Engineering Exam 1 Practice

The boundary between solid and semi-solid states is defined by the shrinkage limit. It is the water content at which further drying does not cause any further reduction in volume. Below this limit, the soil behaves as a solid with essentially constant volume on drying; above it, the soil is in a semi-solid state and continues to shrink when dried. The shrinkage limit is one of the Atterberg limits, which describe how fine-grained soils change consistency with water content, with the liquid and plastic limits marking the transitions from liquid to plastic and from plastic to semi-solid, respectively.