Evaluation of Dispersive Soil Identification Test Methods and Optimization of the Identification Process

【Objective】Dispersive soils pose a serious threat to the safety of water conservancy projects, and their accurate identification is crucial for engineering disaster prevention. Although the combined use of various existing identification methods improves reliability, it suffers from cumbersome procedures and high costs. 【Method】To streamline the identification process, this study systematically collected 401 sets of dispersive soil test data from domestic sources. Using the original researchers' comprehensive identification results as the benchmark, a quantitative analysis was conducted on the identification effectiveness and matching rates of five commonly used test methods: the pinhole test, crumb test, double hydrometer test, pore water soluble cations test, and exchangeable sodium percentage test. 【Results】The findings are as follows: (1) The pinhole test demonstrated the highest matching rate (94%), proving to be the most reliable single-method identification criterion. (2) The crumb test is convenient and effective; when its result is consistent with that of the pinhole test, the matching rate with the original researchers' conclusions reaches 99%. (3) The double hydrometer, pore water soluble cations, and exchangeable sodium percentage tests, when used individually, showed limited identification accuracy (matching rates between 46% and 79%), but they can serve as supplementary means for studying dispersion mechanisms. 【Conclusion】Based on these results, an optimized approach is proposed: for engineering practice, the combined "pinhole-crumb" method can be employed. When the results from these two tests are consistent, a final identification can be made. This scheme significantly enhances identification efficiency while maintaining high accuracy.