The influence of compaction energy on frost-heave characteristics of coarse-grained soil

Compactness is an important parameter to guarantee the subgrade stability, which is dramatically affected by temperature, especially in cold region. In this paper, the effect of compaction energy was considered in frozen stage under closed system. Frost-heave tests with different fines contents and moisture contents with non-water supply under different compaction energy conditions were carried out to find out the relationship between compaction energy and frost-heave ratio. Results showed that frost-heave ratio reached its maximum in the standard compaction energy test, minimum in the insufficient compaction energy test, and median in the over compaction energy tests. Surprisingly, frost-heave ratio first increased with the increase in fines content and then decreased with the increase in fines content. The water weight of absorption per unit area was also set up to explain it. It is an interesting discovery.