A New Device for Compaction Control

Compaction of soil is essential in the construction of highways, airports, buildings and bridges. Typically compaction is controlled by measuring the dry density and the water content of the compacted soil. There is a trend towards measuring the soil modulus instead or in addition to density. The reasons are that the density measurements are made using nuclear density meter, an undesirable tool in today's political environ­ment and that pavement design uses moduli as an input parameter. Although there are many apparatus available to measure soil modulus in the field such as Falling Weight Deflectometer and Dynamic Cone Penetrometer, a light weight device which can measure the soil modulus fast and accurately is in great need. This book presents the newly patented Briaud Compaction Device (BCD) which is a portable device measuring soil modulus in several seconds. The principle of the BCD is explained and the validation process of BCD is demonstrated in this book. This book should help shed some light on the the field of compaction control technologies and should be useful to professionals in the construction and manufacturing industry.