Abstract—Natural soils are an intimate mixture of solid,
liquid and gas phases. This study establishes a correlation for
moisture content and density of a soil with its electrical
resistivity. In the past, most of the conventional geotechnical site
investigation required bulky and heavy equipment to determine
the geotechnical parameters necessary for design and
construction purposes. Consequentially, time and cost of the
project is increased especially when dealing with some difficult
site such as on mountainous terrain. This study is based on
laboratory soil box resistivity meter observations made on soils
mixed with additions of consistent increments of 1-5 % of water
to 1500 gram of remolded soils in loose condition. At least 24
repetitive resistivity test observations were made and the
moisture content and soil density was determined concurrently
for each of the tests. The observations showed that the electrical
resistivity variation decreased in a curvilinear manner with
increasing percentage of moisture content. A regression
equation and coefficient of determination, R2 for moisture
content against soil electrical resistivity value was established
by moisture content, w = 152.87ρ-0.312 (ρ = soil electrical
resistivity) and R2 = 0.7718 respectively. While a regression
equation and R2 value for bulk density versus soil electrical
resistivity value was observed to be ρbulk = -0.107 ln (ρ) +
1.7249 and 0.7016 respectively. Hence, a viable method is
demonstrated where the electrical resistivity value was
applicable and has a great potential for geotechnical data
prediction of parameters such as moisture content and soil
density.
Index Terms—Correlation, moisture content, soil electrical
resistivity and soil density.
Correlation, moisture content, soil electrical
resistivity and soil density.
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Cite:Mohd Hazreek Zainal Abidin, Rosli Saad, Fauziah Ahmad, Devapriya Chitral Wijeyesekera, and
Ahmad Shukri Yahya, "Soil Moisture Content and Density Prediction Using
Laboratory Resistivity Experiment," International Journal of Engineering and Technology vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 731-735, 2013.