SOIL

EXPLORATION
PRACTICE

1) Explains the concept of soil investigation,

(C3, PLO1).
2) Differentiate soil investigation methods, (C4, CHAPTER 3
PLO1)
3) Calculate soil parameters of soil
investigation, (C3, PLO1) MISS SITI NOORAIIN MOHD RAZALI
4) Analyzes results of the site investigation
report, (C4, PLO1)
3.1 Introduction

o soil investigation should have been done before any civil

engineering works can be started.
o Enough information on the particular construction site is required
in order to produce design that is safe and economic. This is to
avoid major obstacle during the process of construction works.
o Records on soil investigation shall give us detailed information
and shall guide us in determining the most suitable type of
foundation and in the case of facing with the problem during boring
stage.
o Soil investigation procedure depended on the type of soil stratum,
to the type of project and the amount of financial invested.
3.2 Purpose of soil investigation
Selection of type and depth of foundation.
Evaluation of the load-bearing capacity of foundation.
Estimation of the probable settlement of structure.
Determination of the potential foundation problem.
Establishment of ground water table.
Prediction of lateral earth pressure.
Establishment of construction methods for changing subsoil
condition.
Reconnaisance
• is the initial investigation made before any exploration steps done.

1. Aerial photography :
• geological information of a very widespread area
• observe the general topographical of the area such as the existence of
creek, river or any large body of water such as lake.

2. Site visit :
• closer view on the project site and report on the observation shall be
made.
• more detailed surface topographical and observation of sub surface from
the surface conditions such as erosion, cut area, ditches and slope failure.
• unusual condition : sanitary landfill, dump area – deserves particular
attention.
• Water presence – major consideration in working with soil, potential soil
stabilization work and history of flood.
• With all general information in hand, the step is boring of
the sub-soil.

• Soil exploration consists of three main stages :-

 boring
 sampling
 testing

• Need to be accomplished by experienced operator on the

related equipment and machineries used.
Auger boring

• Screwlike tool to bore a hole

•Operated manually or power
operated.
•shallow hole, the auger may be
lifted to remove the soil for
disturbed sample
•Difficult to use auger for soft clay
soil or coarse sand
•Difficult to operate under water
table
•Hand auger :depth of less than 6m
•Powered auger: more than 6m
depth
Wash boring

• boring and jetting of water at the

same time
•casing is driven into the soil
•Drill bit located at the end of the
rod ; to separate the soil from
surrounding soil into the casing
•Jetting; pumping water through
drill bit- help separate soil from
surrounding soil
• water transport the cut soil to the
surface
•disturbed samples obtained by this
method are highly saturated.
Test Pit

• done by excavation of the earth by

using excavator.
•Required large space, higher cost
•Limited to shallow excavation
•A pit must be large to allow a person
enter it

The advantages :-
a) Engineer can make inspection
by viewing the exposed walls
b) Taking color photographs of
soil in its natural condition and
c) Taking undisturbed samples.
Core Boring

•Commonly used to drill into and through rock formations.

•Performed using diamond drill bit attached in core barrel sampler while
water or air, serving as coolant.
•Drill bit containing tungsten carbide or commercial diamonds chips.
o If layer with accepted allowable bearing capacity value
measured at shallow depth, once or more boring shall be
made to confirm any weak layer. Study shall be made to
assure that this layer has no effect to the surface stability.

o For skyscraper and high rises boring must be made further

down to bedrock.

o Estimation of minimum depth of any boring can be

made by using Bousinesq’s chart
Sampling
 SAMPLING
Sampling is defined as taking out soil or rock from a bored hole.
- Where :
Ar = area ratio (%);
Di = internal diameter of sampler; and
De = external diameter of sampler

- For nominal disturbance; the value of area ratio shall

<20%
- Normally disturbed and undisturbed samples is obtained at
the depths of 0.5 – 6 meter
Sampling method
1) Test Pits – Block sampling
 Obtained by cutting and sampling
 Trim sample followed the size of box used
 Cut base carefully
 Wrap and label

 Kept and covered by paraffin

 Placed in air tight container
 Stiff and weathered rock: required big samples because of
disturbance ( sample taken from trial pits)
 Advantage: bigger size of soil sample can be obtained

Disadvantage: time consuming, costly, experienced technician needed, special attention

needed and sample might be disturbed by excessive pressure during handling due to its
size
2) Thin wall sampler
 Known as Shelby tube
 Used to minimize disturbance to the soil sampler during
sampling process
 Diameter 15 – 76 mm (normally D = 75 mm and L = 250mm)
 Suitable for soft and stiff fine grain soil
 paraffin wax placed at both ends of tube sampler; prevent loss of
water content
 Advantages: easy to use, cheap, fast
 Disadvantages: Friction in tube produce degree of disturbance,
dril bit easily damage, disturbed sample at base
3) Standard Penetration test (SPT) samplers
 Obtained form split spoon samplers
 Figure : split spoon sampler with 6.84kg or 0.07 kN.
 Disturbed sample at beginning (use for classification process)
 Considered undisturbed at a greater depth due to denser soil condition
 Sample taken at every 1.5m depth
 Sample kept in air tight
4) Open tube sampler
 For stiff clay
 Tube with internal diameter 100mm, L = 450 mm
 Advantages: easy to use, fast and quick, cheap, able to extract bigger soil samples
 Disadvantages: High area ratio (30%), produce internal friction, disturbed sample
at the base, difficult to control during penetration of sampler, quality of sample
depends on the experience of operator
5) Mazier’s sampler

 The type of sampler with three times the size of other sampler
with the core size of 74 mm diameter and it needs an H-casing.
 Pumped materials contain mixture of bentonit and mud.
 Advantages :
 Less disturbance to samples
 Has a stable sampling container.
 Accurate control on the length and depth of samples.
 Disadvantages : Higher cost
 Only experienced operator shall do the sampling works.
 Time consuming
 Specific preparation is needed.
 Continuous maintenance is mandatory
In situ Testing
(1) Standard Penetration Test (SPT)
 Method to correct-N-value

First Method (Peck et al, 1974)

Second Method
Third Method Terzaghi et al, 1996 and Liao and
Whitman
 (2) Cone Penetration Test (CPT)

 Originally known as Dutch cone penetration test

 Also called as static penetration test
 Used to determine the material in a soil profile and engineering
properties
 Use at present measure (a) the cone resistance (𝑞𝑐) to
penetration developed by the cone, which is equal to the vertical
force applied to the cone divided by its horizontally projected
area, and (b) the frictional resistance (𝑓𝑐) which is the resistance
measured by a sleeve located above the cone with the local soil
surrounding it.
 Frictional resistance or sleeve resistance (fs)
 For shallow subsurface exploration
During penetration, a number of variables
are recorded at the cone head or along the
sleeve.

At the cone head the cone resistance (qc) is

recorded (in MPa), which expresses the
resistance of the sediments to penetration.

Along the cone the sleeve friction (fs) is

recorded (also in MPa); indicative for the
adhesive strength of the material.
Consist of two main types of cone tips, Figure 3.14 :
a. Mechanical cone penetrometer tip
b. Mechanical friction-cone penetrometer tip

mechanical friction cone penetrometer

Mechanical cone penetrometer

 CPT data as normally seen in bore log report

Friction ratio, fs/qc is normally higher in cohesive soil compared to non-

cohesive soils.
 For estimating soil classification
for soil tested with recorded
values of qc and fs/qc using CPT.

Soil classification based on tests by Begeman,

Terzaghi, Peck and Mesri (1996).
 (3) Vane Shear Test (VST)
Simple test to determine insitu strength of soft clay soil – especially for soils that lost
their strength due to external disturbance.
~ VST consist of two piece of metal blade crossed fixed to a vertical rod
~Testing is done by pushing in the vane tester into the soft fine grain soil and
apply a torque – twist to the vertical rod.
The value of cohesion (c) is estimated as :
 μ that can be read from this graph

Correction factor μ vs PI = LL – PL (%) ccorr = μc

 (4) JKR or Mackintosh Probe

 Probe is a simple tester and dynamic penetrometer to

inexpensively check the consistency of soil strata.
 To identify bearing capacity of soil
 There is always some confusion to differentiate between the JKR
probe and the Mackintosh Probe.
 The main difference is that : cone for JKR probe has 60° tip angle
while for the Macintosh probe the angled at 30°.
 Probe is driven into the soil by using hammer with mass of 5 kg by
mean of free falling method.
 Driving will be stop when (i) reaching 15m depth or (ii) 400
blows/300 mm whichever comes first.
Frequent mistakes occur during testings are :-

i. Human error :
- Falling height less than 280 mm produce deeper penetration for a single blow,
- Forced blows give results to lower blow count,
- Depth of penetration is not marked correctly
- Position of rod that is not at right angle with the ground surface, will result in
bending in penetration hence produce inaccurate data.

ii. Instrumental error

- Driving rod at bending position will give more reading of blow count and
dammage to the blow absorber.

iii. Additional test

- Normally, hand auger or a trial pit is done to compliment probe result.
Rajah 1: General arrangement (a), penunjuk proba JKR
(b) dan penunjuk proba mackintosh (c).
Video
Data record
 Soil strata based on
their consistencies

Data plot
 Figure 3.25: Chart for
bearing capacity
versus number of
blows/0.3m

Figure 3.25 only used to estimate the bearing capacity of soil layer for the number of
blows/300mm between 0 – 100 only.

Therefore for soil layer harder than this use of equation from Terzaghi dan Meyerhof is
more appropriate or data from SPT test.
3) BORE LOG REPORT
4) RESULTS OF LAB TEST