ABSTRACT
The soil’s footing supporting capacity (bearing capacity), settlement, shear strength, etc. all depend on how well the soil is compacted. Compaction increases the soil’s strength and decreases compressibility and permeability. It may also control characteristics of swelling and shrinkage and frost susceptibility. Compaction is a physical process to decrease the voids of soil by static or dynamic loading. For example, granular soils are easily compacted by vibration, while saturated cohesive soils cannot be well compacted by dynamic loads because of viscous resistance of pore water pressure to transient loadings.
