Kabul University

Engineering faculty
Civil Department

-Proctor Test-

Name: Asad yaqubi

Id: 11088
Department: Civil
Section: A
Instructor: Hekmat Habibi
Date: 1399/9/5
Introduction:
In the construction of highway embankments, earth dams, and many other engineering structures,
loose soils must be compacted to increase their unit weights. Compactions increase the strength
characteristics of soils, which also decrease the bearing capacity of foundations constructed over
them. Compaction also decreases the amount of undesirable settlement of structures and increases
the stability of slopes of embankments. For this reason, before something constructs on soil, one
takes some samples from the soil and do the compaction test. Compaction, in general, is the
densification of soil by removal of air, which requires mechanical energy. The degree of compaction
of a soil is measured in terms of its dry unit weight. When water is added to the soil during
compaction, it acts as a softening agent on the soil particles.

In this laboratory we are going to use proctor test to compact soil.

Tools:
1. Compaction mold with volume of 944 cm3
2. No. 4 U.S. sieve
3. Modified proctor hammer
4. Balance sensitive up to 0.1 g
5. Large flat pan
6. Jack
7. Steel straight edge
8. Moisture cans
9. Drying oven
10. Plastic squeeze bottle with water

Procedure:
At first we take a sample of 4.5 kg of soil by a balance and pass it through 19 mm sieve and
remained on No. 4 sieve. We break all lumps of soil by a mortar and pestle, then we put the minus
of soil passed through No. 4 sieve into a large flat and add water to it by a plastic squeeze bottle.
Initially we add water in amount of 5 % of all soil weight, and then we increase the amount of water
in the next tests, after that we put the soil into the mold in three layers and in each layer we import
25 kicks by means of proctor hammer, next we remove the top attachment from the mold. We use
a straight edge to trim the excess soil above the soil.

After the compaction was finished we balance the soil plus mold.
Before next compaction is started we take a sample from the mold by a moisture can and balance it
then put it into drying oven for 24hour’s time.
For the second test we add 5 percent of all weight of soil water and do the same steps. We
continuing the tests until we find that the weight of mold plus soil is decreasing.
Calculation:
To determine the maximum dry unit and optimum moisture content of soil from the test we plot a
graph of dry unit weight versus moisture content, the maximum point of the graph is the maximum
dry unit weight.
The dry unit weight of a soil is determined from the following formula:

Test 1 2 3 4
Mass of mold W1 (Kg) 7.9365 6.3735 6.3735 6.3735
Mass of mold + Moist soil, 12.7635 10.44 10.62 10.4645
W2(Kg)
Moist unit weight 16.025 21.219 22.159 21.35
W 2  W1
 g
V
Moister can number, Ax 20 18 19 23
Mass of moister can W3(gr) 28.1 26.96 25.05 25.53
Mass of can + Moist soil, 63.44 88.8 84.52 85.36
W4(gr)
Mass of can + dry soil ,W5(gr) 59.53 79.79 73.93 72.29
Moister content 12.44 17.055 21.68 27.95
W 4 W 5
w(%)  100
W 5 W 3
Dry unit of compaction 14.25 18.127 18.21 16.69

d 
w(%)
1
100
Conclusion: In this laboratory we know the role of compaction in Engineering and how to
compact the soil by proctor test.
Reference:
Das-principles of Geotechnical Engineering 8th edition SI by BRAJA M, DAS and KHALED
SOBHAN.