Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mohammadi Et Al 08-Application of DCP For Determination of The Eng Parameters of Sandy Soils
Mohammadi Et Al 08-Application of DCP For Determination of The Eng Parameters of Sandy Soils
discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/238378568
CITATIONS
DOWNLOADS
VIEWS
15
169
453
4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
S. D. Mohammadi
M. Khamehchiyan
15 PUBLICATIONS 19 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
SEE PROFILE
Engineering Geology
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / e n g g e o
A R T I C L E
I N F O
Article history:
Received 20 November 2007
Received in revised form 26 April 2008
Accepted 22 May 2008
Available online 4 June 2008
Keywords:
Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP)
Poorly graded sandy soil (SP)
Dynamic Penetration Index (DPI)
Index Parameters
Coefcient of variations (Cv)
A B S T R A C T
Determination of the in situ engineering properties of foundation materials has always been a challenge for
geotechnical engineers and, thus, several methods have been developed so far. Dynamic Cone Penetration
(DCP) test is one of the most versatile amongst them. In the present research, a light weight simple DCP
device was developed and used for evaluation of the engineering properties of sandy soils in laboratory
conditions. The device consisted of an 8-kg hammer that drops over a height of 575 mm, and drives a 60
cone tip with 20 mm base diameter into the ground. To control the validation of the results, laboratory direct
shear and plate load tests were used as reference tests. The soil sample was a poorly graded sandy soil (SP)
taken from alluvial deposits of the Tehran plain. All DCP tests and PLTs were undertaken on compacted soil in
a mould with 700 mm diameter and 700 mm height. Based on the results of the experiments, the
relationships between Dynamic Penetration Index (DPI), relative density (Dr), modulus of elasticity (E), shear
modulus (G), modulus of subgrade reaction (KS), and the friction angle of the soil were obtained with a high
coefcient of determination (N 90%). The repeatability of the test results was also evaluated by calculating the
coefcient of variations (Cv), which was less than 30% for all tests.
2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
A truly undisturbed sample is dened as completely intact soil
which its in place structure has not been changed in any way. Such
samples are desirable for those laboratory tests which are dependent
on the structure of soil, such as shear strength. Unfortunately, several
issues make it almost impossible to obtain a truly undisturbed sample,
specially in non-cohesive soils. Regarding to these issues, variety of
techniques have been developed to perform in situ tests such as
dynamic probing. Dynamic probing is a continuous soil investigation
technique and is assumed as one of the simplest soil penetration tests.
It basically consists of repeatedly driving a metal tipped probe into the
ground using a drop weight of xed mass and travel. Testing is carried
out continuously from the ground level to the nal penetration depth.
The continuous sounding proles enable easy recognition of dissimilar layers and even thin strata by the observed variation in
penetration resistance. The Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP) is a
lightweight dynamic penetrometer which is considerably faster and
cheaper tool than boring, particularly when the depth of exploration is
low and the soils being investigated are not coarse gravel (Sawangsuriya and Edil, 2005).
Scala (1959) originally developed the DCP in Australia. Since then,
it has been used for site characterization of pavement layers and
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: s_d_mohammadi@yahoo.com (S.D. Mohammadi).
0013-7952/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enggeo.2008.05.006
196
Fig. 1. Geological map of sampling location, modied from Geological Survey of Iran (1998).
Fig. 2. Grains of the used soil in prepared thin section (under PPL, 6 magnication).
Value
emax ()
emin ()
Gs ()
d(max)(KN/m3)
d(min)(KN/m3)
Cu ()
Cc ()
value of clay (%)
value of silt (%)
USCS soil classication
0.97
0.46
2.66
17.85
13.24
1.16
1
0
2
SP
197
steel rod to which the cone is attached has a smaller diameter than the
cone (16 mm) to minimize the effect of skin friction. Depth of
investigation of DCP is 1 m to 2 m. The number of blows during
operation is recorded with depth of penetration. The slope of the
curve dening the relationship between number of blows and depth
of penetration (in millimeters per blow) at a given linear depth
segment is recorded as the DCP penetration index (DPI). DPI for each
depth can also be calculated by Eq. (1) (Embacher, 2005):
DPI
Pi1 Pi
Bi1 Bi
Where:
Table 2
Testing program for laboratory investigations and different densities for tested soil
Dr(%)
Mean of
water content
(%)
Dry unit
weight
(gr/cm3)
DCP
(number
of test)
PLT
(number of test)
Direct shear
(number of test)
25
35
50
60
75
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.4
0.4
1.44
1.48
1.55
1.60
1.67
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
7
7
7
7
7
Relative density
Plate Load Test
DPI
P
B
DPIavg
Ni DPI
N
1 N
DPIi Z i
H i
198
Fig. 5. A schematic diagram of DCP test in testing mould (a) side view (b) plan view.
speed of operation;
applicability in difcult terrains where access is poor;
minimal equipment and personnel;
low cost of the equipment;
simplicity of the operation and data recording/analysis.
Fig. 6. Average of DPI versus depth for studied soil at test mould.
Fig. 8. Example of the results of tests repeated at mould test (a) for Dr = 25% (b) for
Dr = 50% (c) for Dr = 75%.
199
Table 3
Coefcient variation for soil engineering tests (Lee et al., 1983)
Test
Reported Cv (%)
Recommended standard
515
1758
2050
2785
6100
10
25
30
30
40
placed at the center of the sample under the loading frame (Fig. 9). The
hydraulic jack and the supporting frame were able to apply a 60 tons
load. For measurement of deformations, dial gauges that are capable
of recording a maximum deformation of 25.4 mm (1 in) with an
accuracy of 0.001 in., were employed. The ASTM-D 1195-93 (1998)
standard method was followed to perform the test.
Elasticity modulus is always considered as a more important
deformability parameter for geomaterials. As in the case for other
stressstrain tests, different elasticity moduli can be obtained from the
PLT. Soil elasticity moduli can be dened as: (1) the initial tangent
modulus; (2) the tangent modulus at a given stress level; (3) reloading
and unloading modulus; and (4) the secant modulus at a given stress
level (Abu-Farsakh et al., 2004). In this study, since the stressstrain
Fig. 9. A schematic diagram of Plate Load Test (PLT) set up (a) side view (b) plan view.
200
Dr(%)
Description
N42
4223
2312
125
b5
b25
2535
3550
5075
N75
Very loose
Loose
Medium
Dense
Very dense
curves had a clear peak point, the initial tangent modulus was
determined for all plate load test results. To determine the initial
modulus (EPLT(i)), a line was drawn tangent to the initial segment of the
stressstrain curve, then an arbitrary point was chosen on the line and
the stress and deection corresponding to this point were determined
for calculation of the initial modulus. Fig. 10 describes the deformations
and stresses used for determining EPLT(i). A reloading stiffness modulus
called EPLT(R2), was also determined for each stressstrain curve.
The second parameter which can be calculated from PLT results, is
shear modulus (G). Shear modulus is dened as the ratio of shear
stress to shear strain (Bowles, 1997) and is calculated from Eq. (4)
(Timoshenko and Goodier, 1970):
GPLT
qD
1v
8
where:
q=
D=
=
=
bearing pressure
diameter of the loading plate
settlement
Poisson's ratio
s
N1 60
100
Cp CA COCR
R2 0:98
EPLTR2 MPa 53:73=DPI0:74 R2 0:94
Fig. 14 and Eq. (10) show the correlation between EPLT(i) and EPLT(R2)
which has a power trend.
1:49 2
R 0:94
EPLTR2 MPa 0:16 EPLTi
10
where:
Ks =
P =
S =
201
suggested by other authors (e.g. Pen, 1990; DeBeer, 1990; Konard and
Lanchance, 2000). Due to the smaller grain size, the values of elasticity
moduli from correlations suggested in this study are smaller than
those presented by others.
3.3. DPI versus shear modulus (G)
Several methods are available to evaluate the shear modulus of
coarse-grained and ne grained soils, such as geophysical methods,
Plate Load Test (PLT) etc., which are all costly. In the present research,
DPI (mm/blow)
Description
N45
4525
2515
155
b5
b30
3034
3436
3642
N42
Very loose
Loose
Medium
Dense
Very dense
202
shear modulus decreases with increasing values of DPI. This correlation is exponential with a determination coefcient of 0.93.
Table 6
Summary of developed e-questions in this paper
GPLT MPa 75:74=DPI0:99 R2 0:93
Parameters
Equations
Type
correlation
Determination
coefcient (R2)
DrDPI
EPLT(i)DPI
EPLT(R2)DPI
EPLT(i)EPLT(R2)
GPLTDPI
KsDPI
Dr
DPI
Dr(%) = 189.93/(DPI)0.53
EPLT(i) = (MPa) = 55.033/(DPI)0.54
EPLT(R2) = (MPa) = 53.73/(DPI)0.74
EPLT(R2)(MPa) = 0.16(EPLT(i))1.49
GPLT(MPa) = 75.74/(DPI)0.99
KS(MN/m3) = 898.36/(DPI)0.9
= 26.31 + 0.21(Dr)
= (Deg) = 52.16/(DPI)0.13
Expotential
Expotential
Expotential
Power
Expotential
Expotential
Linear
Expotential
0.98
0.83
0.94
0.94
0.93
0.95
0.90
0.90
11
12
13
R2 0:90
14
15
203
Sawangsuriya, A., Edil, T.B., 2005. Evaluating stiffness and strength of pavement
materials. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Geotechnical
Engineering.
Scala, A.J., 1959. Simple method of exible pavement design using cone penetrometers,
Proceedings of 2ndAustralianNew Zealand Conference on Soil Mechanics and
Foundation Engineering, New Zealand. 1959.
Timoshenko, S.P., Goodier, J.N., 1970. Theory of Elasticity, 3rd Edition. Mc Graw-Hill
Book company, New York.
Webster, S.L., Grau, R.H., Williams, R.P., 1992. Description and application of Dual Mass
Dynamic Cone Penetrometer. U.S. Army Engineers, Waterways Experiment Station,
Instruction Report, No. GL-92-3.