Effectiveness of the Underwater Tamping Method for Compaction of Sandy Soils

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-672-7_19How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Underwater Compaction; Rod Tamping; Relative Compaction; Relative Density; Compaction Energy

Abstract

The tamping method is a manual soil compaction technique, that involves the application of repetitive localized impacts using a rod to compact soils. Although the compaction of sandy soils in a moist state is widely used in laboratory and field conditions, the compaction of sandy soils in an underwater condition presents unique challenges. This paper presents the effectiveness of the tamping method when applied underwater, focusing on its effectiveness for soil densification. So, three compaction strategies—drop hammering at the optimum moisture content, drop hammering at an arbitrarily chosen moisture content (6%), and tamping underwater—were assessed in order to ascertain the efficiency of the underwater tamping method. Test results reveal that the tamping underwater method yields excellent densification in terms of the relative density of sandy soils. The minimum relative density achieved is 68% for small-scale laboratory compaction underwater with a compaction energy of 105 kN-m/m³. The minimum relative density achieved is 44% by the method of drop hammering at the optimum moisture content at the same compaction energy. Compared to drop hammering in moist conditions, tamping underwater is found more efficient for the densification of sandy soils. However, the method of manual tamping underwater may not be feasible for large-scale compaction works, and hence, alternate methods with greater energy transfer capacity and broader coverage may be considered.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Md. Abu Taiyab
AU  - Mohammad Jamsadul Alam
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/04/04
TI  - Effectiveness of the Underwater Tamping Method for Compaction of Sandy Soils
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovation in Civil Engineering and Architecture for Sustainable Development (IICASD-2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 228
EP  - 244
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-672-7_19
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-672-7_19
ID  - Taiyab2025
ER  -