In a borrow pit, the natural soil was found to have a moist unit weight of 112 pcf. The insitu water content is 12.0%, and the specific gravity of soil solids is 2.7. The geotechnical engineer has decided to excavate, haul, and compact this soil in a highway embankment fill to a dry unit weight of 115 pcf at an optimum water content of 15%. If 10,000 cubic yard of compacted fill are required: a. How many cubic yards of borrow material are required to be excavated?
b. If the compacted fill later becomes saturated by heavy rainfall, without change in the compacted void ratio: Compute the saturated water content and saturated unit weight.