A known weight of material, the amount being determined by the largest size of aggregate, is
placed upon the top of a group of nested sieves (the top sieve has the largest screen openings and
the screen opening sizes decrease with each sieve down to the bottom sieve which has the
smallest opening size screen for the type of material specified) and shaken by mechanical means
for a period of time. After shaking the material through the nested sieves, the material retained
on each of the sieves is weighed.
The cumulative method requires that each sieve beginning at the top be placed in a previously
weighed pan (known as the tare weight), weighed, the next sieve's contents added to the pan, and
the total weighed. This is repeated until all sieves and the bottom pan have been added and
weighed.