Review on current advances and consideration issues in preparing soil-rock mixture for laboratory testing

An extensive review of the soil-rock mixture strength measurement has been carried under various geomaterials and experimental methods. Primarily, the factors affecting the SRM mechanical behaviour and the testing methods discussed to further understand the importance of the sample preparation process before conducting laboratory testing. The soil-rock mixture is prepared in the laboratory using the test scheme proposed from very recent literature to perceive the dependence of the sample preparation procedure on the result of strength measurement. Then, a thorough literature review conducted to highlight the significant observations that are important in developing a systematic procedure for soil-rock mixture laboratory testing. Furthermore, the findings conclude that besides the soil-rock ratio, the moisture content, type of soil or finer grain component, and variation block strength or coarse grain component are essential factors that need to be determined while preparing soil-rock mixture samples before conducting the laboratory testing. Finally, for the future research direction of preparing a systematic standard for soil-rock mixture samples, several key points include the particle size, the range of soil-rock ratio, the geomaterials used, and the compaction degree proposed to be considered.