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Consultation on compaction.

lkiglesiasrg

Civil/Environmental
Oct 30, 2024
2
Hello,
I am working on a hospital project, and one of the jobs to be done is a well for an oil tank. However, the plan specifies that the oil tank must be filled outside the tank with sand without salts and completely DRY, but the detail is that the sand must be compacted, but at the time of compacting it if or if, you must use water for the sand to grab consistency. But if I follow what the plan says, how can a sand be compacted without water.
 
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I would think in this scenario compacting dry would be sufficient. Likely just specified in effort to prevent bridging and or minimize future settling. I imagine you are already working on this but the big question is how to get the sand completely dry and how this will be defined.
 
We will dry the sand in the sun, since I work in an arid place, and the sand we will use will be river sand.
Once the sand is dry we plan to place it in layers of 20 centimeters, then give it 5 cycles of compaction and place another layer of 20 centimeters, the issue is that the height to be filled is approximately 3 meters. However, as it is known the sand to compact it without water is complicated since, at the moment of doing it and passing the compacting plate while it continues passing the compaction cycles and while it is stepped in some area of the sand by more compacted than it is the sand will come loose again and it will be as if it had not been compacted. This situation does not occur when water is poured into the sand.
 
Sounds like you have a free-draining sand that will be placed similar to a "rock" fill. 5 cycles of vibratory compaction should give sufficient stability of the material. Will there be a pavement on top of this sand? How is it supposed to remain dry after placement?
 
Talk to the specifier. It feels like someone may have been trying to say that they don't want you to flood 'compact' it, but you presumably want it at something close to optimum moisture content for mechanical compaction. I can't think of what condition would require a completely dry sand for installation.
 
Confirm with the EOR, but contractually the detail would normally take preference.
 

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