Soil Compaction

DEFINITION
It is defined as the method of mechanically increasing the density of soil.

ADVANTAGES
Increases the strength characteristics of soils, which increase the bearing
capacity of foundations constructed over them.
Decreases the amount of undesirable settlement of structures.
Increases the stability of slopes of embankments.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES
By reducing the air voids, more soil can be added to the block.
When moisture is added to the soil during compaction:

The soil particles will slip more on each other causing more reduction in
the total volume, which will result in adding more soil, and
Hence, the dry density will increase, accordingly.
 Beyond a certain moisture content (w= w2), any increase in the moisture content
tends to reduce the dry unit weight.
Why?

Because the water takes up the spaces that would have been occupied by the
solid particles.

OPTIMUM MOISTURE CONTENT the moisture content at which the MAXIMUM DRY
UNIT WEIGHT is attained.

The laboratory test generally used to obtain the maximum dry unit weight of
compaction and the optimum moisture content is called the PROCTOR COMPACTION
TEST (Proctor, 1933).

STANDARD PROCTOR TEST

In the Proctor Test:

The soil is compacted in a mold that has a volume of 944 cm3 (1/30 ft3).
The diameter of the mold is 101.6 mm (4 in.).
During the laboratory test, the mold is attached to a baseplate at the
bottom and to an extension at the top.
The soil is mixed with varying amounts of water and then compacted in
three equal layers by a hammer that delivers 25 blows to each layer. The
hammer has a mass of 2.5 kg and has a drop of 30.5 mm (12 in.).
For each test, the moist unit weight of compaction, g, can be calculated as

With the known moisture content, the dry unit weight can be calculated as
 For a given moisture content and degree of saturation S, the dry unit weight of
compaction can be calculated as

For a given moisture content, the theoretical maximum dry unit weight is obtained
when no air is in the void spaces, that is, when the degree of saturation equals 100%.
Hence, the maximum dry unit weight at a given moisture content with zero air voids can
be obtained by substituting S = 1 in the equation above, or

To obtain the variation gzav with moisture content, use the following procedure:

Determine the specific gravity of solid soils.

Know the unit weight of water.
Assume several values of w, such as 5%, 10%, 15%, and so on.
Use the equation above to calculate gzav for various values of w.
FACTORS AFFECTING COMPACTION
EFFECT OF SOIL TYPE
The soil type that is, grain-size distribution, shape of the soil grains, specific
gravity of solid soils, and amount and type of clay minerals present has a great
influence on the maximum dry unit weight and optimum moisture content.

Lee and Suedkamp (1972) studied compaction curves for 35 soil samples. They
observed that four types of compaction curves can be found.
 EFFECT OF COMPACTION EFFORT

The compaction energy per unit volume used for the standard Proctor test can be
given as

From the figure, we can observe that

As the compaction effort is increased, the maximum dry unit weight of

compaction is also increased.
As the compaction effort is increased, the optimum moisture content is decrease
to some extent.