Prediction of Permeability Coefficient of Compacted Lateritic Soils

Abstract

Objectives of this research are to study parameters affecting permeability of compacted lateritic soils, and to create equations for predicting their permeability coefficients. Three sources of the laterite soils were obtained from central, northern and northeast Thailand. Grain size distribution of the soil samples were performed before and after compaction. Five degrees of compaction energy were used to generate various dry densities of the compacted samples based on five international compaction standards. The determination of permeability coefficient was then performed using a rigid-wall permeameter constant head. Finally, all data were analyzed by multiple linear regression to generate the prediction equations of permeability coefficients ofcompacted laterite soils. Grain size distribution, fine content, density and void ratio of compacted lateritic soils directly affected the permeability coefficients, which ranged between 7.8910-9 and2.1610-5 cm/sec. The prediction equations, which were created based on five main parametersaffecting permeability coefficients of compacted lateritic soils, including fine content, effective size, void ratio, compaction energy and dry density provided a high accuracy with R2≥0.99.