Engineering Commons^™

Identification Of Kentucky Shales, Tommy C. Hopkins, Brian C. Gilpin

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Results obtained from a series of engineering tests performed on 40 different types of shales are summarized and discussed. Both hard and soft shales, as well as shales having well-documented histories of involvement in highway embankment failures and shales having little known involvement, were tested. A major portion of the report examines the suitability of the slake-durability tests, originally devised by Franklin-Chandra of England, as a means of broadly characterizing the engineering properties of Kentucky shales. Results obtained from ten different slake-durability testing procedures, which include procedures proposed by Franklin and Chandra and others as well as procedures devised during …