Comparative Analysis of Gyratory and Proctor Compaction Processes of Unbound Granular Materials

ABSTRACT The Proctor method is the most widely utilized compaction method in the study of unbound granular soils that are used in road infrastructures. However, a possible drawback of the Proctor test is that material undergoes impact loads that do not have a well defined correspondence with the energy application modes in field compaction methods. For this reason, some research studies have recently focused on the use of the gyratory method, which has been successfully utilized so far in the study of bituminous mixture, for unbound materials. In the present work, the elaboration of the data allowed the authors to understand and compare the evolution of the densification processes attained with the two compaction methods. In particular, correlations were found between the energies transferred by the two devices to reach the same density level.