How to check Sand Quality at Site/ Field?
What is Sand and how to check is quality before using at site?
What is Sand?
It is a building material, and sand is a granular material blanketing the beaches, riverbeds and deserts.
There are some field test for find quality of sand.
Test For Bulking Of Sand
- Take 250 ml. glass cylinder.
- Fill up with damp sand up to the 200 ml. mark.
- Slowly pour some water. The sand settles to its actual volume which is less than 200 ml. Mark this level. Let us assume that it is D ml.
- Then Bulkage is calculated by using the formula
% Bulkage = {(200-D)/D} x 100
- This bulking of sand should be known for proper correction to be applied when calculating dry sand requirement.
Silt Content Of Sand
- Take a clean 200 ml. measuring cylinder.
- Fill it with sand up to certain mark (say the reading is X). Add water above it up to 200 ml. and shake well.
- Allow a period of 2 hours for settlement.
- For fast result we can use salt into it.
- Clean sand will settle at the bottom with silt and clay impurities on top of the sand layer.
- Now observe the top level reading for sand. Assume that it is Y. Then the silt contain in % is given by
% silt content = {(X-Y)/X} x 100
Total silt content should not be more than 7% for good quality sand.
Organic Impurities
- Observe the sand while unloading the truck.
- Visual inspection shows coloured particles other than sand such as shells, gravels, lime impurities etc.
- This should not be more than 1% of the total sand received.
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