Abstract: This paper examines the influence of soil temperature, environment temperature, moisture content, and compaction energy on the compaction characteristics of sandy soil under winter conditions through laboratory tests at the environment temperatures of -10, -15 and -20 ?C. Field compaction tests on the same soils were also performed during winter construction of an embankment. Results indicate that for unfrozen sandy soil under negative temperature, there has a maximum dry density and optimum moisture content, and that the dry density exhibits a slight decline trend with the decrease in environment temperature. For a given rolling machine, good correlation exists between the times of its rolling compaction and the beat times of compaction. For frozen sandy soil, however, its dry density shows an obvious decrease with the increasing moisture content or decreasing soil and environment temperatures. Additionally, with the increase of moisture content, much more compaction energy is needed to reach the required dry density. For a given rolling machine, we can calculate the times of its rolling compaction needed to ensure compaction quality in winter construction by obtaining the compaction energy beforehand through compaction tests at different negative temperatures.