Predicting compaction properties of soils at different compaction efforts

Soil compaction is a key operation regarding the construction of, for example, railway and road embankments, earth dams and clay liners for waste disposals. Standard and modified Proctor tests are employed to obtain the optimum compaction properties at different energy levels. The choice of compaction technique depends on the type of compacted earthworks to be carried out. In practice, it is possible that the same material deployed in the past for a certain engineering work has to be reused in different work, requiring a different compaction energy. As compaction tests are time consuming, a preliminary assessment of optimum compaction properties from one energy level to another can be useful in geotechnical applications. Two empirical models linking different compaction energies are presented in this paper. Using the liquid limit, the possibility of evaluating the optimum moisture content and maximum dry unit weight from modified properties was investigated. A database of 49 data sets from the literature was used to build a model, which was validated with 14 other independent data sets. Statistical analysis was carried out and Monte Carlo simulations were also performed. This paper provides an update on knowledge regarding compaction at different energy levels using a larger database.