Small-strain modulus of soils is a very important parameter in geotechnical engineering. However, complexities in performing conventional tests and the high cost of testing system have prevented it from becoming a routine test for gravelly soils commonly used in pavement construction. Therefore, development of an alternative, simple and reliable testing technique is essential to the application of the mechanistic design for a flexible pavement system. In this paper, a technique has been developed using a large oedometer equipped with piezoelectric sensors. Elastic moduli and Poisson's ratio of gravelly soils were determined under cyclic loading conditions, for three soil specimens with varying percentage of gravel. It is found that there is considerable variation in the modulus values with different gravel contents. The influence of confining pressure and number of stress cycles is investigated. The experimental results are compared with several empirical formulae widely used to estimate the elastic modulus of gravel and sand.
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