## 3 Results  
### Visual Evaluation  
The purpose of the visual evaluation was to show how soil particles can be affected by increased disintegration time. For this reason, only a few samples were chosen to illustrate the effects. Figure 3 shows the visual evaluation of Soil 1 before and after disintegration at various times. Figure 3a shows that the soil specimen consisted of different sizes of agglomerated particles, ranging from a few millimeters to 8 cm. After homogenizing the soil specimen at 16 and 17 s disintegration times, it was found that the soil started to develop small-sized particles due to the breaking up of the agglomerated particles, as shown in Figure 3b,c for wet and air-dried specimens, respectively. When the disintegration time was increased to 30 s, it was seen that soil particles started to agglomerate and adhere to each other, forming larger agglomerated particles, as shown in Figure 3d,e for both wet and air-dried specimens. A similar observation was made regarding the formation of larger sizes of agglomerated particles when the disintegration time was increased to 60 s (Figure 3f,g) until the soil became almost one piece at a 120 s disintegration time. Figure 3: Visual evaluation of Soil 1 before and after disintegration at various times: (**a**) Non homogenized soil specimen; (**b**) Wet soil specimen prepared at 16 seconds; (**c**) Air dried soil specimen prepared at 17 seconds; (**d**) Wet soil specimen prepared at 30 seconds; (**e**) Air dried soil specimen prepared at 30 seconds, (**f**) Wet soil specimen prepared at 60 seconds, (**g**) Air dried soil specimen prepared at 60 seconds. Figure 4 shows the visual assessment of Soil 2 before and after disintegration at various times. It can be seen in Figure 4a that the soil specimen contained a wide range of agglomerated particles from 1 to 9 cm in size. After homogenizing the soil specimen at disintegration times of 10 and 13 s, it was found that the agglomerated particles in the soil started to break up into small-sized particles, as shown in Figure 4b,c. However, when the disintegration time was increased to 16 s, the soil particles started to agglomerate and adhere to each other and became stickier, as shown in Figure 4d. Figure 5 shows the visual evaluation of Soil 3 before and after disintegration at various time periods. Figure 5a shows that the original soil specimen consisted of a wide range of agglomerated particles ranging from a few millimeters to about seven centimeters. After homogenizing the soil at 6 and 13 s disintegration times, the agglomerated soil particles started to break into small-sized particles, as shown in Figure 5b-d for both wet and air-dried specimens. Subsequently, when the disintegration time was increased up to 25 s, the soil particles started to agglomerate and adhere to each other until they became almost one piece of soil, as shown in Figure 5e. Figure 4: Visual evaluation of Soil 2 before and after disintegration at various time: (**a**) Non homogenized soil specimen; (**b**) Wet soil specimen prepared at 10 seconds; (**c**) Wet soil specimen prepared at 13 seconds; (**d**) Wet soil specimen prepared at 16 seconds. Figure 6 shows the visual evaluation of Soil 4 before and after disintegration at various times. Figure 6a show that the specimen consisted of a wide range of agglomerated particles, ranging from a few millimeters to 8 cm. After homogenizing the soil specimen with a 15-s disintegration time, it was found that the agglomerated soil particles started to break up into small-sized particles, as shown in Figure 6b,c for both wet and air-dried specimens, respectively. When the disintegration time was increased to 30 s, the soil particles started to agglomerate and adhere to each other until they became almost one piece, as shown in Figure 6d,e respectively.