Can you expound a bit on what difficulties you are facing?

Also, see the following reference :Gee, Glendon W., and Dani Or. “Particle-size Analysis” In Methods of Soil

Analysis. Part 4. Physical Methods edited by Jacob H. Dane and G. Clarke

Topp, 255-293. Madison, WI: Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

De Shorn Edmund Bramble Hello De, thanks for your reply. Actually, am interested to find the texture of soil (river sediment) like how much % is silt clay sand respectively and I am using the 151H hydrometer and Calgon solution as dispersion reagent. Samples having high sand %, gives me an accurate readings of the measurements. But with samples having high clay(%) content the values are only showing 12-13% clay content whereas the actual samples is highly clayey in texture. I'm not sure where I am doing wrong calculations.

It is not sure to me about the method of calculation. There are two important corrections to be done, one is temperature correction and another is hydrometer correction. Besides, in the method, initially, the removal of organic matter present in soil must be completely removed by mostly using hydrogen peroxide treatment, the amount of finer particles, silt and clay trapped by the organic matter must be released in to solution. These things are not known from you and for this, it is not possible for me to explain any reason behind this abnormal results.

Ruchika Sah . Sometimes when your samples has a lot of clay you may need to use a smaller mass of sample. We've actually had the same issue at our lab. We had a student do an investigation on it. For now I suggest you try using about 20 grams of soil for your heavy clay soils and 50 grams for your coarse textured soils Also if you samples are high in organic matter you may need to treat them with hydrogen peroxide. Also consider shaking your soils overnight to help with the break down of the aggregates. Have you had a look at the reference I provided you with? It can help to answer some of the other questions that you may have. I will get back to you shortly with the calculations you requested.

Please refer to the document attached for getting correct particle size data. Good day!

Hi. You should have a table with columns H1, T1, H2, T2.

H=Hydrometer reading

T=Temperature reading

Hoping you weighed 50g of sample, took H1and T1 after 40 seconds and H2,T2 after 2 hours.

Do temperature corrections to the hydrometer readings(hydrometer was calibrated at 20 degree celcius =68 Fahrenheit.

%SAND= 50 - corrected H1/50*100

%CLAY= corrected H2/50*100

%Silt=100 - (%SAND + %CLAY)