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ABSTRACT
The lateritic soil is a construction material that attracted great attention from researchers due to its vital role in so many aspects of geotechnical engineering. It serves as materials for sub-base, sub-grade in highway construction. It's also of great importance in the construction of earth dam and so on. Given that, it is essential to investigate some important properties of this material, such as compaction properties. This paper is aimed at determining the compaction characteristics of laterite used for construction purposes in Sokoto and its environs. Laboratory tests were conducted to determine the moisture content and dry density relationships, consistency limits, CBR values, and grading of the samples obtained from four different borrow pits from Wamakko, Kalambaina, Tangaza-bale and Dange-shuni roads in Sokoto metropolis. These locations were identified here as site 1, 2, 13, and four respectively. It was gathered from the tests that, the Optimum Moisture Content for sites 1, 2, 3, and 4 are 8.6%, 8.4%, 10.1% band 7.1% respectively. Also from the CBR result, samples from sites 1, 2, 3, and 4 have the CBR values for soaked samples as 90%, 96%, 91%, and 85% respectively. The Plasticity Index (PI) for the samples from sites 1, 2, 3, and 4 were found to be 8.3, 5.4, 9.0 and 7.0 respectively. It was concluded that soils from all sites are good lateritic soils, that laterite from site 3 has the best compaction property, and that laterite from all the sites are suitable sub-base and sub-grade construction in the highway. Full Text
