Preferably, use a rubber-lined pestle to avoid breaking up the sand particles. Next, disaggregate the soil manually using a mortar. Beginning with a fine soil sample, dry it at 60 degrees Celsius or less, as needed. The main advantage of this technique is that it is not only quick, simple, and cheap, but also accurate and free of subjective interpretations. Therefore the obtained results are highly reliable to classify and identify soils for botanical purposes. This method allows the plastic limit to be obtained with a clear and objective criterion. The traditional thread-rolling method is highly influenced by the skill of the laboratory operators, so an alternative approach is presented.
The overall goal of this new procedure is to determine the plastic limit in soils by measuring bending deformations.
