Determination of Compaction Characteristics of Maiduguri Soil

-Compaction is one of the efficient ways to improve the strength and stiffness properties of soils, such as elasticity modulus and shear modulus. Moreover, compaction decreases soil settlement, improves bearing capacity and the stability of sloped embankments. An optimum water content is required to provide the best path to enter energy into soil and compact it. A constant value of energy applied to a particular type of soil, at optimum water content, leads to a maximum dry unit weight. The aforementioned parameters MDD , OMC) are not unique for various types of soils and vary with the type of soils and the compaction energy. This study was carried out to gain the understanding of the relationship between moisture content and bulk density of Maiduguri sandy loam soil, collected from the University research farm. The particle size distribution analysis of the soil was carried out using the dry sieving analysis method. The soil was loaded in the cylinder and compacted at different moisture contents and its dry bulk density determined. The plot of bulk density versus moisture content was drawn to obtain the soil’s compaction curve, yielding its optimum moisture content and maximum dry density for the soil as 15% and 1645kg/rn respectively. Keywords-Maximum dry density, optimum moisture content, sandy loam soil, Maiduguri, semi-arid environment