PREDICTION OF COMPACTION PARAMETERS FROM FINE SOIL INDEX PROPERTIES

Abstract

Soil compaction is a vital part of the construction process. It is used for support of structural entities such as building foundations, roadways, walkways, and earth retaining structures to name a few. For a given soil type certain properties may deem it more or less desirable to perform adequately for a particular circumstance. The main objective of this thesis is to obtain correlations between compaction characteristics of fine grained soils and their Atterberg limits. For this purpose, 40 samples have been collected from a borrow area of Burdana Quarry, which is located at the right bank upstream of Setit River, then the soil samples were tested at the laboratory of Dam complex of upper Atbara project. In the analysis section, the Microsoft Office Excel software was used for the regression analysis. Attempts were made to obtain the relationships between Atterberg limits (Liquid Limit, Plastic Limit, and Plasticity Index) with the compaction parameters (Optimum Moisture Content, and Maximum Dry Density). The results have shown that the Optimum Moisture Content and Maximum Dry Density have an excellent relationship with the Liquid Limit, other than the Plastic Limit and Plasticity Index. It was noted that the Optimum Moisture Content has also an excellent correlation with Maximum Dry Density other than the remaining parameters. Therefore, for the prediction of Optimum Moisture Content, and Maximum Dry Density of fine grained soils from the Atterberg Limits' correlations, it is recommended to use the compaction parameters and Liquid Limits' correlations due to their reliability in comparison with the other correlations. The outcome of this thesis could be useful and applicable in different civil Engineering sectors, especially for preliminary investigations and prefeasibility study of civil engineering works such as construction of roads, earth dams, and other works that involve soils.