Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion

Many years ago, a new concept called relative density was developed with the intention of appropriately defining the looseness and denseness of sand or sand–gravel soils in a meaningful way. Soon after, relative density found its way into ground improvement as an acceptance criterion by engineers wh...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hamidi, Babak, Varaksin, S., Nikraz, Hamid
Format: Journal Article
Published: ICE Publishing 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/10317
_version_ 1848746199583031296
author Hamidi, Babak
Varaksin, S.
Nikraz, Hamid
author_facet Hamidi, Babak
Varaksin, S.
Nikraz, Hamid
author_sort Hamidi, Babak
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Many years ago, a new concept called relative density was developed with the intention of appropriately defining the looseness and denseness of sand or sand–gravel soils in a meaningful way. Soon after, relative density found its way into ground improvement as an acceptance criterion by engineers who were more familiar with the construction of engineered backfilling rather than thick mass treatment. There are considerable amounts of research and publications that are able to well demonstrate the unreliability of relative density as an acceptance criterion. Relative density has no real influence on the soil's performance, its range of application does not span across all soil types, and it is subject to large inherent errors that make its use a technical risk. Here, the reasons why the concept of relative density is unreliable and should not be used for a ground improvement acceptance criterion are presented and discussed
first_indexed 2025-11-14T06:29:28Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-10317
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T06:29:28Z
publishDate 2013
publisher ICE Publishing
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-103172017-09-13T14:49:27Z Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion Hamidi, Babak Varaksin, S. Nikraz, Hamid foundations geotechnical engineering strength and testing of materials Many years ago, a new concept called relative density was developed with the intention of appropriately defining the looseness and denseness of sand or sand–gravel soils in a meaningful way. Soon after, relative density found its way into ground improvement as an acceptance criterion by engineers who were more familiar with the construction of engineered backfilling rather than thick mass treatment. There are considerable amounts of research and publications that are able to well demonstrate the unreliability of relative density as an acceptance criterion. Relative density has no real influence on the soil's performance, its range of application does not span across all soil types, and it is subject to large inherent errors that make its use a technical risk. Here, the reasons why the concept of relative density is unreliable and should not be used for a ground improvement acceptance criterion are presented and discussed 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/10317 10.1680/grim.11.00014 ICE Publishing fulltext
spellingShingle foundations
geotechnical engineering
strength and testing of materials
Hamidi, Babak
Varaksin, S.
Nikraz, Hamid
Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
title Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
title_full Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
title_fullStr Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
title_full_unstemmed Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
title_short Relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
title_sort relative density concept is not a reliable criterion
topic foundations
geotechnical engineering
strength and testing of materials
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/10317