Using the duplicate portion of sand at SSD to determine the dry mass of the sample removes the necessity to dry the entire contents of the pycnometer.

• A. It depends on the pycnometer size
• B. Only for small samples
• C. True
• D. False

Answer: (C)

In this method, the dry mass is found by drying a representative portion rather than the whole pycnometer contents. If you take a duplicate portion of the sample and dry it to saturated surface dry, you get its dry mass. Because moisture content is assumed to be uniform across the sample, that dry mass represents the dry mass of the entire sample when scaled appropriately, so you don’t have to dry the entire contents of the pycnometer. This saves time while still providing accurate results, provided the moisture is evenly distributed and the portion is truly representative.