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The Proctor Compaction Test and its related procedures are absolutely vital to understanding retaining wall capabilities. The article oddly seems to miss such a

The Proctor Compaction Test and its related procedures are absolutely vital to understanding retaining wall capabilities. The article oddly seems to miss such an essential cornerstone of geotechnical engineering. Does an amateur need to know about the Proctor when doing a low retaining wall at home? No, of course not. Does a website called "Practical Engineering" get to miss out on such a fundamental design prerequisite? Not IMHO. Great article and video, nonetheless.

idealmedtech 5y ago
I think the point of this blog and YouTube channel is to make these concepts approachable to the lay person, and introducing lots of technical jargon (relevant though it may be to actual geotechnical engineers) is not the best way to accomplish that.
- cf100clunk 5y ago
  Time to rename it from "Practical Engineering" to "Popular Engineering"? To me, the Practical handle is significant, so taking a few seconds to explain why soil compaction tests are vital makes practical sense.
  - dsshakey 5y ago
    The practical in his videos probably refer to the fact that he always explains things in physical models. It's very rare to just be theory. Thus, practical engineering demonstrations.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
For thousands of years retaining walls were successfully constructed without more than a cursory understanding of soil compaction and they didn't have rebar or geotextile to help them. Nobody needs to understand soil compaction if they're willing to move and expend way more material than the bare minimum in order to solve the the problem. This is true in a lot of subject areas. You don't need to understand a lot of things if you're willing to copy what is tried and true and can tolerate some inefficiency. For almost all personal and commercial projects the material is going to be cheaper than paying a real engineer to poke the soil with a calibrated poker and plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet that has some formulas.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pixl97 5y ago
  And for thousands of years they've either been massively over engineered, hence the expense made them out of reach for most people and applications. Inefficiency doesnt work in packed urban environments that require to fit in a budget.
SECProto 5y ago
I think they are vital to calculating retaining wall capabilities. But not vital to understanding them. Source: have spent many a day doing proctors.
- cf100clunk 5y ago
  > have spent many a day doing proctors. I salute you. My late father-in-law was a slide rule wrangler of a pipeline engineer who often did the same. By the time I got started in geotech computing support (Unix, Apollo Domain, VMS) we had the numbers stuff readily available on a CRT screen for guys like him.
mitchdoogle 5y ago
Hopefully nobody is watching the video as part of their training for building an actual retaining wall. It's just information for the curious.
gerdesj 5y ago
"The Proctor Compaction Test establishes the maximum unit weight that a particular type of soil can be compacted to using a controlled compactive force at an optimum water content." That looks like geotechnics to me (UK). It's also not too useful here. Compacting soil is for certain parts of paths and roads construction, not retaining walls.

idealmedtech 5y ago

I think the point of this blog and YouTube channel is to make these concepts approachable to the lay person, and introducing lots of technical jargon (relevant though it may be to actual geotechnical engineers) is not the best way to accomplish that.

cf100clunk 5y ago
Time to rename it from "Practical Engineering" to "Popular Engineering"? To me, the Practical handle is significant, so taking a few seconds to explain why soil compaction tests are vital makes practical sense.
- dsshakey 5y ago
  The practical in his videos probably refer to the fact that he always explains things in physical models. It's very rare to just be theory. Thus, practical engineering demonstrations.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

For thousands of years retaining walls were successfully constructed without more than a cursory understanding of soil compaction and they didn't have rebar or geotextile to help them. Nobody needs to understand soil compaction if they're willing to move and expend way more material than the bare minimum in order to solve the the problem. This is true in a lot of subject areas. You don't need to understand a lot of things if you're willing to copy what is tried and true and can tolerate some inefficiency. For almost all personal and commercial projects the material is going to be cheaper than paying a real engineer to poke the soil with a calibrated poker and plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet that has some formulas.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pixl97 5y ago
And for thousands of years they've either been massively over engineered, hence the expense made them out of reach for most people and applications. Inefficiency doesnt work in packed urban environments that require to fit in a budget.

SECProto 5y ago

I think they are vital to calculating retaining wall capabilities. But not vital to understanding them. Source: have spent many a day doing proctors.

cf100clunk 5y ago
> have spent many a day doing proctors. I salute you. My late father-in-law was a slide rule wrangler of a pipeline engineer who often did the same. By the time I got started in geotech computing support (Unix, Apollo Domain, VMS) we had the numbers stuff readily available on a CRT screen for guys like him.

mitchdoogle 5y ago

Hopefully nobody is watching the video as part of their training for building an actual retaining wall. It's just information for the curious.

gerdesj 5y ago

"The Proctor Compaction Test establishes the maximum unit weight that a particular type of soil can be compacted to using a controlled compactive force at an optimum water content." That looks like geotechnics to me (UK). It's also not too useful here. Compacting soil is for certain parts of paths and roads construction, not retaining walls.