Density of soil

## Density of soil solids

Learn Density of soil, density of soil formula, density of soil definition, density of soil meaning, density of soil solids, bulk density, dry density, density of solids, saturated density, submerged density.

## Density of soil solids.

The density of soil is defined as the mass of the soil per unit volume.

### Bulk density.

The bulk density or moist density is the total mass M of the soil per unit volume

$\rho = \frac {M}{V}$

It is expressed in terms of g/cm3 or kg/m3.

### Dry density

The dry density is the mass of solids per unit of total volume (prior to drying) of the soil mass:

$\rho_{d} = \frac {M_{d}}{V}$

### Density of solids

The density of soil solids is the mass of soil solids (Md) per unit of volume of solids (Vs):

$\rho_{s} = \frac {M_{d}}{V_{s}}$

### Saturated density

When the soil mass is saturated, its bulk density is called saturated density. Thus, saturated density is the ratio of the total soil mass of saturated sample to its total volume.

### Submerged density

The submerged density is the submerged mass of soil solids (Md)sub per unit of total volume V of the soil mass:

$\rho’ = \frac {(M_{d})_{sub}}{V}$

The submerged density or buoyant density is also expressed as:

$\rho’ = \rho_{sat}-\rho_{w}$

where rw is the density of water which may be taken as 1 g/cm3 of calculation purposes.

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