Part 8
COMMMON
PROBLEMS
INSUFFICIENT GRUBBING
Established compaction standards limit inclusion of
organic debris to no more than 2% by volume if less
than 2-inches diameter, and zero percent for debris > 2
inches in diameter (Mike Scullin in photo)
ENTRAINED
ORGANICS
Root balls left in the
ground usually rot
within 5 to 10 years,
leaving noticeable
pockets of settlement
or sinks structures if
the voids collapse
In this case the tilled
furrows between the
root balls heaved
upward, breaking the
lightly reinforced
house slabs
Always try to employ the
Observational
Method
Common sense
and the
observational
method are crucial
components of
soils testing. If
you see a lot of
dust blowing
during grading,
chances are the fill
is being placed
well dry of
optimum moisture
level.
WATCH FILL LIFT THICKNESS
Lifts between 6 and 8 inches are typical when using
standard size compactors. This thickness must be
reduced if using smaller hand-operated machines, as
is often required in trench excavations.
Speed vs lift thickness
The faster the scrapper moves during fill placement, the thinner
the lift of soil that is laid down. This can be advantageous if the
soil is near optimum moisture content and can be rolled between
passes. Note how dry the working pad is in this image, and the
slightly dusty nature of the fill being loosed upon this dry surface.
Both these factors would lead to lower-than-optimum placement.
BEWARE OF DOUBLE DUMPING
These scrappers are dumping thick lifts of fill
one behind the other. This is known as
“double dumping” and should be prohibited
when placing engineered fill.
Fill lift thickness can be detected as cyclic variances in
sleeve friction ratio of Cone Penetrometer Soundings
made shortly after compaction, before the fill has
absorbed noticeable volume of water (from J. D. Rogers, 1992,
Long Term Behavior of Urban Fill Embankments: Stability and Performance of Slopes
and Embankments II: ASCE Geotechnical Special Publication 31, Vol. 2, pp. 1258-1273).
Failure to compact keyway margins
and/or subdrains
CAT 825 series pad compactor spreading a lift of fill in a
keyway using its blade. Fill lifts should be between 4
and 8 inches thick with a minimum of two passes by the
compactor before placing more fill.
MOISTURE CONTROL
Moisture control is of paramount importance when
compacting cohesive soils, especially expansive soils.
Low humidity wind is a bigger problem than ambient
air temperature.
The wetter the better for structures
When compacting expansive soils to support
structures (not roads), care should be exercised
to compact the soil 2% to 5% over optimum
moisture content, if possible.
When compacting expansive soils wet of their optimum
moisture content, some sacrifice may need to be made.
In situations with high plasticity clays (PI > 25) it may be
advisable to employ a reduced density in the upper 5 to
10 ft of the fill prism, to reduce the potential for post-
construction heave (Seed & Chan, 1959).
Oversize rock can be included in engineered fill, provided
proper precautions are taken to provide filtration between
voids. This is usually accomplished by jetting a well-
graded gravel mix (such as Cedergren’s Class II permeable
mixture) into the interstices between the blocks.
ROCK WINDROWS
Rock windrows
are used to
bury oversize
rock
Rocks are lined
up in rows
PLAN VIEW
Rows are
typically buried
>15 feet below
finished grade
and >25 feet
behind sloping
SECTION VIEW
face
Windrows are usually sluiced with jetted sand and
gravel mixtures, to infill voids beneath and between
blocks, as sketched here. Sluicing is important because
it is impossible to compact beneath the rounded,
irregular blocks.
Sluicing well graded
granular backfill
Well-graded mixtures of
sand, gravel, and rock can
be hydraulically sluiced by
hoses and vibrated to
generate sufficient
compaction and
interlocking, as shown at
left. Target water contents
are around 10% moisture
This shows the backfilling
of a reinforced concrete
power conduit for the
Bureau of Reclamation
Compacting Culvert
Inverts
Above: Prior to the 1930s most culverts
were constructed of masonry, like this one
Below: Corrugated steel culverts were
introduced in 1896. Segmented galvanized
circular steel culverts (shown below)
began to dominate practice in the 1930s
Little or no
attempt was
made in the
early days to
mechanically
compact
beneath the
lower
hemisphere of
the circular
culverts
The lack of compaction beneath the lower hemisphere of the circular culverts led
to numerous hydraulic piping failures, especially with cohesionless backfill.
Early Solutions – 1940s
In the 1940s the problem was often solved by
employing rectangular concrete footings, concrete
boxes, slush grouting, and placing soil-cement
backfill.
Creative Solutions
Above left: Clear
spanning the channel
with parabolic shell
on strip footings
Middle: mechanical
compaction can be
accomplished next to
rectangular culverts
Lower left: Tamping well-graded backfill in thin lifts using
Whackers
Upper right: Infilling the culvert hemispheres with
crushed rock (OK for low head applications)
Parabolic Culverts
Parabolic culverts are manufactured in CMP, aluminum, and HDPE. The difficulty
in compacting lower hemisphere backfill depends on their curvature, as seen in
the upper left versus upper right images.
