Material fabric and mechanical properties after compaction for unbounded granular materials

When unbounded granular materials prepared using vibrocompression are subjected to many cycles of loading at various q/p ratios, it appears a wide scatter due to the variability of the material fabric. To improve the prediction of permanent strains, this scatter must be reduced. That’s why an experimental program has been focused on the material fabric observed after compaction. The statistical treatment of the results shows that the initial compactness (e, γ d ) is firstly influenced by the aggregates type and the intensity of compaction when the initial stiffness (E 1 ) and the permanent stains ( ϵ p ) mainly depend on the water content. The same approach will be developed for a large amount of cycles to predict the in-service response of unbounded granular materials.