| Abstract: | Soil as a volume — means to record its changes on profile basis Compaction and loosening of soils always means change of its total volume. Since such changes cannot occur downward, or sideways beyond the effect of closing cracks after previous shrinkage, the total effect is a change in the level of the soil surface. Such changes can be assessed by aid of the void ratio‐depth relation. This function is treated as an analogy to the compression curve of classical soil mechanics as obtained by 1‐dimensional confined oedometer measurement. It was termed as packing characteristic in earlier papers. Starting at this curve the solid volume for a freely chosen depth/vertical stress level in the soil column is calculated to be used as reference level. To this column the related height of pores is added which is calculated from the void‐ratio/vertical stress diagram. By this method the upper end of this calculation has to be chosen to be e.g. ca. 0.4 cm below proper surface. Using this procedure volume i.e. height changes can be compared for deliberately chosen soil profiles, fresh sediments, and artificial land fills. An important item for the precision of the result is the correctness of the assumption for linearity of the packing characteristic. This assumption was tested using sets of values from 63 soils. The observed deviations are interpreted in terms of mechanisms that may cause them. |
