Sub Soil Exploration: Part-6

CE3350: Geotechnical Engineering

August – December 2021

K. Rajagopal
Professor & P.K. Aravindan Institute Chair
Department of Civil Engineering
I.I.T. Madras, Chennai 600 036
e-mail: gopalkr@iitm.ac.in
September 7, 2021
 Review of previous classes
 Site reconnaissance
 Geophysical tests – electrical resistivity &
seismic refraction tests
 Sounding tests – DCPT, SCPT & LCPT
 How to decide the plan locations of
boreholes & depth of investigation
 Different methods of forming boreholes
 Soil sampling
 Standard Penetration Tests
Subsoil investigation - 6 2
 Standard Penetration Test (SPT) IS 2131
 Commonly used test that helps in assessing the in situ strength
& enables collection of soil sample
 Test is performed inside a borehole at different depths
 Suitable for all types of soils
 A longitudinal split cylinder of about 508 mm length is
attached to a thick walled driving shoe (IS9640)
 The cylinder and driving shoe are of standard dimensions
 These are attached to standard size drilling rods
 The sampler is driven into ground using standard energy
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Subsoil investigation - 6 4
 IS-9640 (1993)

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 Standard Energy

 63.5 kg mass repeatedly lifted up and dropped

 Fall height of 750 mm
 Number of blows for each 150 mm penetration into ground
is recorded during the test

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 Standard Penetration Test
 Test is conducted at every 750 to 1500 mm depth intervals or
whenever there is a change in soil stratum
 Bore hole is advanced to the required test depth
 Drill rods are removed from borehole & drill bit is removed.
Then the split spoon sampler along with driving shoe are
attached at bottom of standard drill rods and lowered into
borehole for the test
 After the test, soil sample is carefully collected from split
spoon sampler in a plastic bag. An identification tag is
placed indicating the borehole number, depth of test, date
and time of test & visual identification of the collected soil
sample Subsoil investigation - 6 7
Soil investigation rig with drilling and SPT arrangement

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Removing split spoon sampler from drill rods

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Soil sample in split spoon sampler
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 Procedure of Test
 The split spoon sampler along with driving shoe is driven into
soil using blows from 63.5 kg hammer falling from a height
of 750 mm
 The sampler is first driven into soil by 150 mm distance. Soil
in this zone may be disturbed due to borehole operations.
Hence the number of blows in this depth are treated only as
seating drive and neglected
 Next, the sampler is driven into ground by another 300 mm in
stages of 150 mm each. The number of blows for each 150
mm distance are counted separately
 Number of blows for each 150 mm penetration are reported as
SPT resistance, e.g. 03/20/30 where the first number 3 blows
is neglected as seating drive
Subsoil investigation - 6 11
 SPT resistance
 The sum total of blows from the last 300 mm penetration is
reported as SPT resistance, N=20+30=50
 In case of very soft soils, the entire drill rod assembly might
sink into ground without any blows. The resistance in such
cases is reported as “0”
 When the ground is very hard, sampler may not penetrate into
ground even after several blows, it is reported as
refusal/rebound
 If even after giving large number of blows, the penetration
does not reach 300 mm, the number of blows & corresponding
penetration is reported as SPT resistance, e.g. 100 blows for
20 mm penetration, etc. Subsoil investigation - 6 12
 Termination of Borehole
 The borehole should continue up to the required depth where
foundation pressure reduces to a small percentage, usually 10
to 20%
 Borehole is terminated only when the SPT resistance from
tests performed at three consecutive depths is more than 50 or
100
 Consecutive three tests is to avoid any isolated large resistance
due to a piece of small stone, etc.
 Especially in bouldery strata, care should be taken to extend
the boreholes to sufficient depth
 Three consecutive tests means that tests are performed over a
depth of 1.5 m to 3 m which is a fairly large representative
depth of testing Subsoil investigation - 6 13
Stress contours below shallow footings
100 kPa 100 kPa

z  1.5 D

z  4.5 B

2 m wide wall/strip footing 2 m diameter circular footing

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 Precautions during SPT
 Borehole should be cleaned to remove all debris at bottom of
borehole before performing the tests
 Split spoon sampler and driving shoe should be of standard
dimensions as per IS 6940
 Drill rods should be of standard dimensions and should not be
bent
 The annular space of falling mass should be well lubricated to
reduce any energy loss due to friction
 Mass of hammer and height of fall should be as per standards

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 ……….Precautions during SPT
 If the borehole is lined, the test needs to be performed below
the depth of liner – otherwise the test is conducted inside a
soil plug in the liner leading to very high resistance
 The water level in borehole should be slightly above the
GWL in the surrounding soil – if water levels are too
different quick conditions may happen at the bottom of
borehole leading to low resistance values

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 Corrections to SPT N-values
 In case of clay soils, the SPT N-values are used directly
without any corrections
Cohesive strength  6N kPa
 In case of sands, two corrections are applied to SPT N-values
in the same order as shown below,
• Overburden correction
• Dilation correction for tests performed in dense sands
below water table

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 Overburden correction
 Sands having the same relative density (or ) may exhibit
different strengths at two different depths
 Soil at larger depth will behave stronger that the same soil at
shallower depths due to larger overburden pressures
 e.g. at 5 m depth, max  5tan()
at 20 m depth, max  20tan()
 As seen above, soil will exhibit higher shear strength at 20 m
depth although the friction angle of soil is the same at both
depths

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 Overburden correction
 Hence, SPT-N value will be higher at 20 m depth as
compared to that at 5 m depth
 Correction is applied to SPT-N value to normalise its value to
remove the effect of overburden pressure
 The corrected SPT N-value represents the true strength of soil
at different depths
 The correction factor is empirically derived by comparing
data from different sites

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 Overburden corrections to SPT N-values in Sands

Overburden correction factor in case of sands is,

N = CN  N
CN is overburden correction factor
2000
= 0.77 × 𝑙𝑜𝑔10

=effective overburden pressure in kPa
N value is reported as a whole number
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 Dilation correction for dense sands when tests
performed below water table
1
𝑁 = 15 + 𝑁 − 15 ; 𝑁 > 15
2 of more than 15 is considered to
 Corrected SPT N value
represent dense sand conditions
 Repeated quick blows from SPT hammer is similar to
performing rapid undrained shear tests (without allowing for
dissipation of pore pressures)
 Dense sands dilate under shearing
 Dilation of saturated sands under undrained conditions
produces temporary negative pore pressure (suction) leading
to higher strength during testing
 N is reported as a whole number – above equation is NOT
TO BE SIMPLIFIED as 7.5+N/2 Subsoil investigation - 6 21
 …. Dilation correction
 Negative pore pressures (suction) during SPT leads to
temporary increase in effective stresses & consequent
increase of shear strength
 Measured number of blows may be higher than those
corresponding to the true strength of the soil
 Hence, the N value needs to be reduced to account for
temporary increase in strength
 This correction in N-value is represented by the dilation
correction (applicable only for dense sands tested under water
table)
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 Numerical Example

SPT N-values are 25 and 60 at 5 m and 25 m depths

respectively. Saturated unit weight of soil is 20 kN/m3.
Assume that water table is at ground level. Unit weight of
water may be assumed as 10 kN/m3. Report the corrected N
values.
2000 1
𝐶𝑁 = 0.77 × 𝑙𝑜𝑔10 𝑁 = 15 + (N −15)
𝜎 2

Depth N  = .z CN N = CN.N N

5 25 50 1.23 31 23
25 60 250 0.69 42 29

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Correlation between SPT N values and strength of clay soil
(Lambe and Whitman 1969)

N-value U.C.C. (kPa) consistency

<2 < 25 very soft
2-4 25 - 50 soft
4-8 50 - 100 medium
8-16 100 - 200 stiff
16-32 200 - 400 very stiff
> 32 > 400 hard
cohesive strength  6SPT N-value (kPa)

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Correlation between corrected SPT N values and
cohesionless soils (Bowles 1988)

N-value ° relative density (%) description

<4 25-30 0 very loose
4-10 27-32 15 loose
10-30 30-35 65 medium
30-50 35-40 85 dense
> 50 38-43 100 very dense

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Relation between corrected SPT N-value
and friction angle of sands, IS6403

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Correlation between footing settlements and corrected SPT N-values, IS2911
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Subsoil investigation - 6

28
 Subsoil investigation - 6

Sub-Soil profile of Mexico city – observe the practically zero SPT N-values up to 30 m 29
 Field Vane shear test
• Field vane shear test is similar to that of the
laboratory test
Torque, T
• Performed in soft clay soils having
undrained cohesive strengths less than 20
kPa
• Vanes have length to diameter ratio of more
than 2
• Vanes are rotated at standard rotation rate to
measure the maximum Torque T that can be
applied at limit
• Maximum torque (T) is related to cohesive
strength of soil (C), diameter of vanes (d)
and height of vanes (h) as follows,
𝒅𝟐 𝒉 𝒅𝟑
𝑻 = 𝑪𝒖 𝛑 +
𝟐 𝟔 𝒐𝒓 𝟏𝟐 Subsoil investigation - 6 30
Field vane shear apparatus placed on borehole for test

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Vane shear test being performed
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 Pressure meter test

Performed inside a borehole,

to determine the in situ lateral
stresses in soil & determine
the modulus of soil

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 Summary
Different in situ tests performed in boreholes and
their interpretation are discussed

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