14 Site investigation for piling

In very stiff fissured clays with high silt contents, open-drive sampling becomes
impracticable and in-situ dynamic or static penetration tests such as the SPT or CPT
may be employed. Pile design from the results of these tests is highly empirical although
it is generally adequate for a preliminary test pile. A number of correlations have been
proposed between the SPT ‘N’ value and the undrained shear strength of silt and hard
clays. These are given below.

cu = 20N kN/m2 Meyerhof (1956)

cu = 13N kN/m2 Terzaghi and Peck (1967)

cu = 7N kN/m2 Reese, Touma and O’Neill (1976)

cu = 4 to 6N kN/m2 Stroud and Butler (1975)

[Note that modern nomenclature is to use su for undrained shear strength rather
than cu , emphasizing the nature of shear strength in clays; however, for historical
reasons cu has been retained in this text].
Clearly the range of values is large, and the correlations should not be employed
in isolation, but checked against any available field and laboratory test results for
the particular clay being investigated. Corroboration is particularly necessary for the
higher cu derivations. It should be noted that UK practice tends towards the use
of lower ratios compared with typical US practice. This could have come about
as a result of a number of factors, such as typical SPT field methods and may
not relate to differences in the soil. The relationship between ‘N’ and cu proposed
by Stroud and Butler (1975) is frequently adopted for use in UK non-sensitive
clays where other measurements are not available. The Stroud and Butler N−cu
relationship is dependent upon the plasticity index of the clay (PI) as shown in
Figure 2.4.
Where the static cone penetrometer is used to estimate soil strength, the undrained
shear strength, cu , may be predicted from the relationship

qc = Nk cu + p0

where qc denotes the loading on unit area of the cone (kN/m2 ).

Nk denotes the cone factor.
cu denotes the undrained shear strength (kN/m2 ).
p0 denotes the total overburden pressure (kN/m2 ).
Estimation of shear strength by this method has been used extensively in North Sea
glacial clays, where electrical cones are used (see Figure 2.3). Cone factors, Nk , of
25 are recommended by Marsland (1976), who also noted that the ultimate bearing
capacities measured by the cone were greater by factors of between 1.2 and 3.0 than
those obtained from plate-bearing tests. Further information on cone testing may be
found in Meigh (1987) and Lunne et al. (1997).
Of the latest methods available for the determination of deformation and strength
parameters from in-situ measurements, there is the self-boring pressuremeter such as