Determination of the consistency limits of soils by the fall cone test

The liquid and plastic limits for a variety of natural and artificial soils covering a wide range of plasticity, as determined by the Casagrande method and the fall cone test and based on a strength criterion, were compared. To check the validity of the strength criterion, the undrained shear strength of these soils has been determined with a laboratory vane over the water content range between these limits. A limited comparison of the undrained strength values obtained from the vane test and fall cone test is also given. Key words: Atterberg limits, consistency, fall cone, laboratory vane, shear strength.