Recovery of Samples in Site

Investigation
 Outline
1. Purpose and principles
2. Drilling and Sampling in Rock
3. Drilling Tools
4. Drilling Process
5. Drilling and Sampling in Soil
6. Daily Drilling Records
7. Probe Drilling
8. Boring and Sampling over Water
9. Contaminated Land
 Purpose and principles
• The first purpose of site investigation is to acquire the data needed to create a
threedimensional geotechnical model of the ground that will be encountered and
affected by the construction of the project.
• This model must represent:
– i the sizes and shapes of the different bodies of materials in the ground,
– ii the geotechnical properties of those materials that are relevant to the
project,
– iii the distribution, orientation and engineering characteristics of the structural
discontinuities in the mass, and
– iv the location and behaviour of groundwater.
• The second purpose of site investigation is to use this information for predicting
the reaction of the ground to the construction of the project.
• Access to the ground must be obtained to gain information on the factors required
to establish the model.
• This is mostly done by opening some form of excavation, by describing the
materials and features encountered, and by taking samples to be tested in the
laboratory.
• The excavation may be in the form of a trial pit, a
shaft or a tunnel, although the first is usually
employed for minor projects, such as small
uncomplicated housing developments, while the
last two are usually associated with in situ tests
for major projects.
• Samples taken are commonly described as either
‘disturbed’ or ‘undisturbed’, the former being
generally useful only for identification (or simple
tests leading to identification) and the latter for
formal description and testing.
• Access to the ground:
– by opening some form of excavation: trial pit,
shaft, or tunnel.
– By describing the materials and features
encountered
– by taking samples to be tested in the laboratory
• Access with boreholes provide both descriptive
data and samples
• The site investigator is necessarily faced with the
problem of deciding what, where, and how to
sample.
• the frequency of sampling must be related to the
complexity of the geology, and the type of
sampling must be related to the significance of
the geological conditions to the engineering
project.
 Commonly used drilling methods
• Rotary core drilling
• rotary “open hole”
drilling
• percussion boring with cable tools
• power
augering
• percussion “down
hole hammer”
• hand augering
• probing
 Rotary Core Drilling
• armed at its base with ‘teeth’ of a material
harder than the rock to be drilled
• rotated and pushed downward
• cut out of the rock and a cylindrical core will
pass into the tube
• Commonly the ‘teeth’ consist of industrial
diamonds set into a metal matrix to form the
core bit.
• This becomes heated by friction and must be
cooled by a flushing medium which also
removes rock cuttings and transports them to
ground level.
• To prevent cuttings jamming between the bit
and the sides of the hole, the diameter of the
hole may be enlarged slightly by a diamond
studded reaming shell screwed in place above
the bit
• In the single tube core barrel the flushing
fluid, commonly water, flows from above over
the core and thence to the bit.
• This may erode the core and this, together
with damage brought about by contact with
the rotating barrel, reduces core recovery
• For this reason the single tube core barrel is
seldom used in rotary core drilling.
• Most core drilling today is done with double
tube core barrels
• These contain an inner tube which, being
mounted on bearings at the top of the barrel,
does not rotate with the outer barrel.
• Flushing fluid passes between inner and outer
tubes to the bit.
• The core enters the inner tube and is thence
protected against abrasion from the rotating
outer tube and erosion from flushing fluid.
 Drills
• The rotary core drilling rig has to provide
for the rotation of, and the vertical load
on, the coring bit.
• Drilling rods connect the core barrel to
surface and allow the passage of flushing
fluid down to the core barrel.
• The drill rod passes through a drill head to
which it is clamped via a ‘chuck’.
• Rotation of a horizontal axle driven by the
motor is translated into rotation of the
vertical hollow stem to which the chuck is
attached by means of a gear box.
• Downward push on the coring bit is
usually given by hydraulic rams powered
by the motor
Core barrels come in various sizes which by convention (BS4019
1974) are designated by letters which also define the size of the
associated drill rods and casing.
 Drilling Tools

The ideal objective when core drilling is to achieve 100% recovery of sample. In
general terms, the larger the core diameter the better the possibility of maximum
recovery, so at shallow depths in the weathered and weakened rock mass coring
begins using a fairly large size, perhaps S (113 mm diameter).
The size may be reduced as the rock mass improves with depth, perhaps to H (76 mm
diameter) and thence to N (54 mm diameter). To do this, sizes of drill rod, casing etc.
have also to be reduced so that B casing fits inside N casing which fits inside H casing
and so forth
 Core Bits
• Bits used for coring are cylindrical and annular.
• The edge is studded with hard abrasive materials, sometimes tungsten
carbide, but more usually diamond.
• There is a large variation in the design and cost of core bits, reflecting their
relative performance and durability in different rock types.
• With diamond bits, the most important variations concern the shape of
the abrasive face, which is called the ‘kerf’ or sometimes the ‘crown’ (and
which may be anything from planar to fully rounded), the width of the
kerf, the arrangement of the diamonds and the nature and composition of
the matrix into which the diamonds are set.
• The matrix usually consists of sintered metal which may be impregnated
with diamonds in a cheaper bit, or the diamonds may be hand set in a
specific pattern of different sizes in more expensive types.
 Core Barrels
• Details of the design of barrels vary from one manufacturer to another,
but they come in three types – single, double and triple tube.
• The requirement of the barrel is to retain the core and protect it as much
as possible from damage caused by rotation of the barrel, contact with the
flushing medium, raising the core to the surface and removing it from the
barrel.
• Generally, the greater the complexity of the barrel the greater the
protection, but more complex barrels are more expensive and are subject
to higher maintenance costs as well as being more prone to breakdown.
• The triple tube core barrel affords extra protection to the core and may be
used where necessary, for example in coring of extremely friable rocks,
such as Quaternary sequences and fault gouges, but it is not generally
used in most site investigations, and may not be available for that reason.
 Flushing Media
• With the exception of power auger drilling, all machine rotary drilling is
carried out with the aid of a flushing fluid which may be air, water, drilling
mud, polymers or a chemically based foam.
• The flushing fluid has the primary purpose of transporting the rock
cuttings out of the borehole so that drilling may proceed in newly
presented rock at the bottom of the borehole.
• The other important function of the flushing medium is to cool and
lubricate the bit.
• Water is the flushing medium most used because of its low cost and
general availability, although of course this may not be the case in arid
countries.
• It is dense enoughto transport cuttings if the flow rate is reasonably high,
and it is effective as a coolant and lubricant.
Integral Core Sampling
Drilling and Sampling in Soil
Probe Drilling
Boring and Sampling over Water