Abstract: Compaction characteristics of the core wall soil material reflects the compacting effect in the construction of a real dam project. In this work, a mixture of aeolian sandy soil material and granite gravel material is selected for experimental tests on compaction characteristics under the conditions of different water contents, different gravel ratios, and different compacting efforts. For this gravel-mixed soil, the relationship of its dry density versus water content, ratio of gravel and compacting effort is examined. The test results show that with the increase in water content, the compaction curves of the mixed soil present a parabolic relationship with a trend of increasing first and then decreasing. Under heavy compacting effort, the compacted dry density of the soil material increases first and then decreases with the increasing gravel content; while under light compacting, it increases with a nearly proportional and linear trend. For the mixed soil with a fixed gravel ratio under the increasing compacting effort, its compacted dry density increases gradually and tends to converge.

Key words: core wall material, compaction characteristics, water content, gravel proportion, compactive effort