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 Geotechnical and Geophysical Site Characterisation 5 – Lehane, Acosta-Martínez & Kelly (Eds)
© 2016 Australian Geomechanics Society, Sydney, Australia, ISBN 978-0-9946261-1-0

New developed soundings to assess liquefaction potential of soils

S. Sawada
OYO Corporation, Saitama, Japan

ABSTRACT: This paper presents newly developed three types sounding equipment for evaluating the lique-
faction susceptibility of soils. The first one is a Piezo Drive Cone (PDC) which is a dynamic penetrometer
with pore pressure transducer that measures pore pressure of the ground generated during dynamic penetration
at the cone tip. The second one is dynamic cone penetration test equipment with measurement of the pull-out
resistance, which is named “Penetration & Pull-out Test (PPT)”. The last one is a Dynamic Weight Sounding
(DWS), in which an electrical hammer drill is installed at the top of Swedish weight sounding rod. The valida-
tion test results indicate that PDC, PPT and DWS are highly useful for evaluation of liquefaction-induced
problems due to earthquakes. In addition, liquefaction risks assessment in teams of the factor of safety can be
evaluated in a short time. Therefore, liquefaction risks for a large area can be evaluated in a relatively short
period.

1 INTRODUCTION
Many case histories on earthquake disasters have
been showing that significant damages due to the
soil liquefaction. In particular, the liquefaction sus-
ceptibility in an area is judged based on sparse data.
Therefore, a more precise evaluation is required for
the reliable design against soil liquefaction. Some
cost-effective methods are required from the engi-
neering point of view.
The sounding is one of the most important and
convenient tests for soil investigations. In recent
decades, many efforts have been made to extend its
applications to various fields in geotechnical engi-
neering.
The present paper addresses the three types of
new developed sounding equipment for evaluating
the liquefaction susceptibility of soils. The first one
is a Piezo Drive Cone (PDC) which is a dynamic
penetrometer with pore pressure transducer that
measures pore pressure of the ground generated dur-
ing dynamic penetration at the cone tip. The second
one is dynamic cone penetration test equipment with
measurement of the pull-out resistance, which is
named “Penetration & Pull-out Test (PPT)”. The last
one is a Dynamic Weight Sounding (DWS), in
which an electrical hammer drill is installed at the
top of Swedish weight sounding rod. The validation
test results indicate that PDC, PPT and DWS are
highly useful for evaluation of liquefaction-induced
problems due to earthquakes.
2 THREE TYPES SOUNDING EQUIPMENT
2.1 Type of evaluation related to performance
grade
Three kinds of equipment devices have different
grade in terms of accuracy for the evaluation of liq-
uefaction strength of soils.
Table 1 shows the performance grade of subject
matter for evaluation. Table 2 shows the type of
evaluation related to performance grade. As a matter
of course, if you would like to conduct an in-
vestigation precision highly, the cost rises, and the
cost is proportional to precision of the ground infor-
mation.
3 PIEZO DRIVE CONE (PDC)
3.1 Mechanism of PDC
PDC enables evaluation of soil liquefaction strength
in an in-situ test by measuring pore water pressure
during the dynamic penetration test.
PDC measures at every blow not only the pene-
tration resistance value, Nd (correlated N-value), but
also the pore water pressure. The pore water pressure
can be converted into fine fraction content (FC) ac-
cording to the correlation between the residual pore
water pressure ratio and fine fraction content. PDC
estimates liquefaction strength from the results of Nd
and FC values.

651
Table 1. Performance grade A, B, and C.
__________________________________________________ Table 2. Type of evaluation related to performance grade.
__________________________________________________
Performance grade Subject matter to evaluate
__________________________________________________ Type of evaluation Performance grade
_________ ________________
Grade C Qualitative evaluation of the subsistent Grade C Grade B Grade A
__________________________________________________
of liquefiable soils. Dynamic Weight Sounding
Grade B Qualitative evaluation of the susceptibil- (DWS)
ity to liquefaction based on soil classifi-
cation. Penetration & Pull-out Test
Grade A Quantitative evaluation of liquefaction (PPT)
strength based on estimated to SPT N
values and Fine contents FC of soils.
_________________________________________________ Piezo Drive Cone
(PDC)
__________________________________________________
Index : Standard or final investigation
Preliminary or roughly investigation

penetration resistance is defined as the number of

3.2 Test Equipment and Data processing
PDC is a new investigation tool that measures the
pore pressure of the ground which generated at the
cone tip during the dynamic penetration. Figure 1
shows the schematic figure of general PDC system.
This system consists of a cone tip with an inserted
pore pressure transducer, a penetration displacement
sensor, a trigger, a data logger and dynamic penetra-
tion equipment.
blow counts (Nm) required to drive the penetrometer
20 cm during which the sounded soil can be regard-
ed as in the undrained condition. It is found N-value
(Nspt) of the Standard Penetration Test (SPT) namely
equals to a half of the blow counts (Nm).
Nspt  Nd = 1/2 Nm (1)
The porous stones for measuring pore pressure
are located at the cone apex as clearly shown in Fig-
ure 2. The data logger records the penetration dis-
placement and the pore pressure response of every
blow at the cone apex.

Sounding Rod

 28mm

Reducer
Electrical
Cable

Disposable
Cone

Transducer
Housing Pressure
Transducer

Porous 0
90 cone
Stone
ended

 36.5mm

Figure 2. Detailed structure of cone apex with pore pressure

transducer.

The accurate assessment of liquefaction re-

Figure 1. Schematic illustration of PDC.
In this study, we used the light weight dynamic
penetration device which is a modified version of
the Swedish Ram Sounding test equipment named as
the Mini Ram Sounding (MRS). The penetration
rods are driven down mechanically by a 30 kg ham-
mer with free fall from the height of 35 cm. The
sistance of subsoil by means of penetration re-
sistance requires soil types to be determined. Figure
3 illustrates the typical variations of the excess pore
water pressure for sandy and clayey soils. Thus, the
residual cumulative pore pressure uR is defined as
the excess pore water pressure that remains at the
end of the initial penetration phase of the cone tip.
In Figure 4, the residual pore water pressure ratio
(uR/’v, where ’v : the vertical effective stress) is
correlated with the fine content of tested soils.

652
 3
Flow chart for data processing to estimate lique-
Eecess pore water pressure ratio Sandy soil Clayey soil
faction susceptibility using PDC is shown in Figure
2
5. Residual cumulative pore pressure (uR), penetra-
tion displacement and the depth of investigation
Δu/σ'v

1
without unit weight (t) are able to be obtained by
PDC. As far as t, Ground water table (GWT), FC, N
0
value are clear, we can estimate liquefaction suscep-
tibility which is indicated in design specifications.
-1
0 50 100 150 200
Time (msec)
3.3 Example Data
Figure 3. Typical pore water pressure change during cone pene- The liquefaction risk is assessed in two ways. First,
tration .
as widely practiced, the factor of safety, FL, is de-
100 termined. As illustrated in Figure 4, the liquefaction
resistance, R or otherwise called CRR, is determined
80 by using the equivalent Nspt  Nd together with the
Fine fraction content

Clay assessed FC. The pore pressure record is further used

60
to determine the level of the ground water table
FC (%)

40
GWT. After assessing the fines content FC, the unit
Silt weight of soil t is obtained and if it is different from
20 the initial guess, the effective vertical stress has to be
Sand modified corrected and leading to the new cumula-
0 Gravel tive pore pressure ratio and FC. Thus, there is a pro-
0 2 4 6 8 10
Residual pore water pressure ratio (uR/σ'v) vision for feed-back flow in the bottom left of Figure
5. An example of assessed liquefaction risk is illus-
Figure 4. Determination of fine content on the basis of pore wa- trated in Figure 6.
ter pressure record.

PDC measurement data

Residual
Maximum excess pore Penetration
Depth cumulative pore
pressure (Dumax ) resistance Nd
pressure (uR )

Assumption of unit
weight (t )
Maximum excess pore pressure ratio
(Dumax /v )

Total overburden Groundwater table

pressure (V ) (GWT)

Residual cumulative
Effective overburden pressure porepressure ratio
(' v ) (uR /' v )

Postulated (t ) and

Evaluation of unit weight Soil Fine fraction Pentration resistance
valuated (t ) substantially
( t ) classification content (Fc ) ( N-value )
No coincide

Yes
Liquefaction resistance (R )

Shear stress ratio during an

earthquake (L )

Liquefaction resistance (FL )

Figure 5. Flow chart to estimate settlement following liquefaction.

653
 N value, Nd value Fine fraction content (%) Liquefaction resistance RL Factor of safety for liquefaction FL
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
0
PDC PDC PDC
Grain size distribution test SPT SPT
1

2 PDC
SPT

4
Depth (m)

10

Figure 6. Example of assessed liquefaction risk.

4 PENETRATION AND PULL-OUT TEST (PPT)
4.1 Mechanism of PPT
Figure 7 shows a schematic figure of the dynamic
penetration test with measurement of the pull-out re-
sistance which is named “Penetration & Pull-out
Test (PPT)” proposed in this paper. The test con-
sists of two stage tests, first stage, of which the dy-
namic penetration test is conducted to the depth of
interest; second, the pull-out test, of which the cone
apex is pulled out while measuring the resistance.
A light-weight dynamic penetration device
(MRS) was used.
The PPT system is equipped with the displace-
ment sensor, triggering sensor, handy terminal and
data logger. In addition, load cell is introduced to the
ment is shown in Figure 7(b). The pull-out resistance
is measured between the bottom plate and hydraulic
cylinders. When the hydraulic cylinders are extend-
ing, the pull-out resistance is measured. Figure 8
shows the cone apex of PPT.
4.2 Test Equipment and Data Processing
The flow chart for data processing to evaluate the
liquefaction susceptibility by PPT-method is shown
in Figure 9. All data except the unit weight can be
obtained by PPT consisting of the dynamic penetra-
tion test and the pull-out resistance test by the quasi-
static pull-out operation.
69.0mm

pull-out equipment.
A view of the newly developed pull-out equip-
90º

36.6mm

28.0mm

Figure 8. View of PPT cone apex.

PPT measuring data

(a) Dynamic (b) Quasi-static pull out
penetoration
Unit weight Penetrated Pull out Pull out
of soil displacement displacement resistance

Ground Dynamic strength Static strength

water Depth (Undrainage condition)
table (Drainage condition)

Total vertical Soil classification

stress：v Fines content : Fc(%)

Effective vertical Liquefaction resistance : R

stress：’v
(a) Dynamic Penetration Test (b) Quasi-static Pull out Test
Figure 9. Flow chart to estimate settlement follow-
Figure 7. Schematic illustration of PPT. ing liquefaction.

654
 Wroth (1984) suggested that CPT data should be
normalized as follows:
q   v0
Qt  t
 v0
fs
Ft  100
qt   v 0
where Qt= normalized penetrated cone resistance
Ft= normalized pull-out resistance
qt = cone resistance corrected for the unequal
end area effect, qt＝392×Nd (kN/m2)
fs = pull-out resistance at the cone tip (kN/m2)
v0 = total vertical stress (kN/m2)
'v0 = effective vertical stress, v0 – u0 (kN/m2)
5 DYNAMIC WEIGHT SOUNDING (DWS)
5.1 Mechanism of DWS
A new index DNSW is proposed for estimating lique-
(2)
faction susceptibility of soils. The index is calculat-
ed using the results of two types of Swedish weight
sounding test. One test is the traditional quasi-static
(3) weight sounding test, from which, NSW-S (Static), the
numbers of half turns per 1 m of penetration is ob-
tained. The other is a newly developed Dynamic
Weight Sounding (DWS) in which while applying
vibration generated by an electrical hammer drill in-
stalled at the top of sounding rod. The number of
half turns per 1 m of penetration NSW-D (Dynamic) is ob-
tained. Existing of liquefiable soils layer can be in-
vestigated by DNsw which is the difference between
NSW-S and NSW-D.

4.3 Example Data

5.2 Test Equipment and Data Processing
Figure 10 shows the example chart for soil classifi-
cation between normalized penetrated cone re- A schematic figure of Dynamic Weight Sounding
sistance (Qt) and normalized pull-out resistance (Ft) test (DWS) proposed in this paper is shown in Fig-
based on PPT data. ure 11. The DWS system is modified version of
SWS equipment with a dynamic hammer mounted
on the top of sounding rod. The system has a very
100 simple structure and is very cheap.
(COLORS)
【色凡例】
■：0≦Fc<5%
■：5≦Fc<10%
■：10≦Fc<20%
■：20≦Fc<35%
■：35≦Fc<50%
■：50≦Fc<75%
■：75≦Fc<100%

10
Qt

【記号凡例】
(SYMBOLS)
●：0≦Nd<5
▲：5≦Nd<10
■：10≦Nd<20 ⑤
◆：20≦Nd<25
① Handle
1 ② Weight
③ Cramp
0.01 0.1 1 10 ④ Rod
Ft (%) ⑤ Joint rod with penetrometer tip
⑥ Penetrometer tip
⑦ Vibrator
Figure 10. Example for soil classification chart based on PPT. ⑧ Dynamo

Colors of the legend show the range of fine con-
tents. The warm colors, for instance from orange to
red color indicate the high fine contents that is clay-
ey soil, and cool colors, for instance from yellow to
blue color indicate the low fine contents that is
sandy soil. The distribution of the relationship be-
tween normalized penetrated cone resistance (Qt)
and normalized pull-out resistance (Ft) based on
PPT data shows that these data can be used for the
soil classification.
Figure 11. Schematic illustration of DWS.
NSW-S indicates the static resistance of SWS. On
the other hand, NSW-D indicates the dynamic re-
sistance of DWS. The difference at the same depth
between NSW-S and NSW-D indicates the liquefaction
susceptibility of soils as follows,
DNSW = NSW-S - NSW-D (4)
The flow chart for data processing to estimate
depths with high possibility of liquefaction by SWS
& DWS-method is shown in Figure 12. All data can
be obtained by SWS & DWS measurement.

655
 SWS &DWS masureing data tentials at each step of DWS, a new index DNSW is
The number of half turns The number of half turns now defined as equation (4). The discontinuity of
per 1m of penetrate per 1m of penetrate DNSW is seen in the layers between 1.2 m and 2.0 m
Depth
without Vibration (SWS) with Vibration (DWS) and between 2.5 m and 3.2m below the ground sur-
NSW-S NSW-D face. Therefore, the liquefaction potential index
DNSW directly indicates the degree of liquefaction
susceptibility. The threshold value of this index, in-
DNSW ≤ 0 DNSW > 0
dicating whether the soil layers are liquefiable or
Difference between NSW-S and NSW-D
( DNSW=NSW-S - NSW-D)
not, is 0.0 in this study. An example of in-situ quasi-
static and dynamic weight sounding tests was con-
ducted in order to show the effectiveness of the new
Low possibility of High possibility of
index. This DWS is an economically sounding and
liquefaction liquefaction simple in-situ test method for estimating the lique-
faction susceptibility of soils

Judgment of distribution of
high possibility to liquefaction with depth 6 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Figure 12. Fow chart of evaluating liquefaction possibility us- The degree of accuracy is in a relation of the trade-
ing DWS. off with economy. The material for reclamation be-
comes inhomogeneous by the reclaimed method. It
5.3 Mechanism of DWS is essential for the high-resolute information (ad-
vancement of the spatial resolution) on performing
The soil profile and the number of half turns per 1 m the evaluation of soil liquefaction. The most suitable
penetration are shown in Figure 13. The sandy soil solution which balances degree of accuracy (reliabil-
like an intermediate soil layer (BSC) is deposited ity of the ground information) with economy de-
from 0.9 m to 2.3 m in depth. And the uniformed pends on field conditions. The agenda that is the
medium sand with some fine contents layer (BS) is most important for us is to take care of the field en-
from 2.3 m to 3.5 m in depth. These numbers of NSW gineer who can select the most suitable technique of
observed within the sandy soil is under 100 NSW ; the ground investigation technique.
indicating SWS results are almost greater than DWS
result.
7 REFERENCES
(a)The number of half turns (b)Diffrence between
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0 0
SWS
ond European Symposium on Penetrating Testing, Amster-
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DWS dam, 245-250.
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Symposium on Penetrating Testing, Stockholm, Vol. 2.2,
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Depth （m）

Bs 3 3
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