Weight and Volume Relationships for Soils, from NAVFAC DM 7

Over the years, student and practitioner alike have to deal with weight and volume relationships in soils and the dimensionless constants (water content, void ratio, porosity, degree of saturation and so forth.) There are many different “cheat sheets” dealing with this, but the best one IMHO is the one from NAVFAC DM 7, presented below.

These were used in Soils in Construction. NAVFAC DM 7.1 presents basically the same data, but there are some formatting problems in the way they are presented. (I’ve generally stuck with the old DM 7, in part, because they’re easier to read in slide format.)

All of the variables you need are defined in the chart. It’s set up for unit volumes, but can be used with densities (but I’d read this first.)

DM 7 remains the single most used reference (directly or indirectly) in the geotechnical world. Click here to see how you can order your copy.