Evaluation of compaction parameters of fine-grained soils using standard and modified efforts

Abstract Compaction characteristics of the soil have the great importance for practically achieving the desired strength, permeability and compressibility of soil during the construction. Standard compaction test (SCT) and modified compaction test (MCT) are two very famous laboratory test methods to determine the compaction characteristics of soils worldwide. Modest efforts have been made in the past to correlate the compaction parameters drawn from these two tests with each other. In the present study, authors are established the models to predict the modified compaction parameters (γ dmax(m) and w opt(m) ) by using standard compaction parameters (γ dmax(s) and w opt(s) ) or vice versa for the fine-grained soils. Such models can extricate from performing additional tedious and laborious compaction tests. Moreover, the effect of plasticity on the compaction parameters obtained using standard and modified effort is also discussed. Total 156 disturbed fine-grained soil samples were collected from different areas of Pakistan. The index properties tests and laboratory compaction tests were performed using these soil samples. On the basis of index properties tests, these soil samples were classified into different sub-groups of fine-grained soil as per the Unified Soil Classification System. Relationships between the plasticity index (I P ) and compaction parameters of both MCT and SCT were also accomplished. Out of 156 soil samples, test results of 126 samples are used to develop the correlations and test results data of 30 samples was used to validate the developed correlations. The percentage error in the correlation between γ dmax(m) and γ dmax(s) is observed to be only ± 0.4% and for the correlation between w opt(m) and w opt(s) the percentage error is observed to be ± 2.7%