SELECTION OF

GEOTECHNICAL PARAMETERS
Braja M. Das

 Auger boring
Coring
Sampling of soils by split spoon sampler;
Shelby tubes
Standard penetration tests
Cone penetration tests
Pressuremeter tests
Dilatometer Tests
Vane shear tests
Location of water table

Soil Properties

Atterbergs limits
Liquid limit
Plastic limit
Is the soil expansive or collapsible?

Soil Properties
Consolidation Test
o, Cc , Cs
Skempton (1944):
Cc = 0.009(LL 10)
Rendon-Herrero (1983):
Cc = 0.141Gs1.2[(1 + eo)/Gs]2.38

Soil Properties
Consolidation Test
Nagaraj and Murty (1985):

Cc 0.2343[LL(%) 100 ]Gs

Park and Koumoto (2004):
no
Cc
371.747 4.275 no
where no = in situ porosity of soil

Soil Properties
Consolidation Test
PI (%)
Worth and Wood (1978): Cc 0.5Gs
100

Description of soil

Cs/Cc

Boston Blue clay

Chicago clay
New Orleans clay
St. Lawrence clay

0.240.33
0.150.3
0.150.28
0.050.1

Standard Penetration Test

Clay
Consistency index, CI
Standard
penetration
number, N60
<2
2-8
8-15
15-30
>30

LL w
LL PL

Consistency

CI

Very soft
Soft to medium
Stiff
Very stiff
Hard

<0.5
0.5-0.75
0.75-1.0
1.0-1.5
>1.5

Unconfined
compression
strength, qu
(kN/m)
<25
25-80
80-150
150-400
>400

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Marcuson and Bieganousky (1977):

220N60 1600

Dr (%) 11 .7 0.76
2
53 o 50Cu

0. 5

where
Dr = relative density
N60 = standard penetration number in the field

o = effective overburden pressure (lb/in.2)

cu = uniformity coefficient of the sand

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Cubrinovski and Ishihara (1999):

0.06

N60 0.23
D50

Dr (%)

1 .7

0 .5

1
o
p
a

(100)

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Meyerhof (1957):

Dr (%)

N60

o

17 24
pa

Clean medium sand

0 .5

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil

Peck, Hanson and Thornburn (1974) gave a

correlation between N60 and in a graphical
form that can be approximated as (Wolff,
1989):

(deg) = 27.1 + 0.3N60 0.00054[N60]2

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Schmertmann (1975) correlation between
N60, o, and . It can be approximated as
(Kulhawy and Mayne, 1990):

N60
tan

12
.
2

20
.
3

o
a
1

0.34

N60 = standard penetration number in the field

o = effective overburden pressure

pa = atmospheric pressure in same unit as o
= soil friction angle

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Hatanaka and Uchida (1996):

20( N1 )60 20
Brinch-Hansen (1970):

(deg) = 26 + 10Dr + 0.4Cu + 1.6 log D50

Dr (fraction); D50 (mm)

Standard Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Teferra (1975):

1
tan

ae b
1

e = void ratio
a = 2.101 + 0.097(D85 /D15)
b = 0.845 0.398a

Vane Shear Test

cu(design) = cu(VST)

Bjerrum (1972):

= 1.7 0.54(PI)
Morris and Williams (1994):

= 1.18e -0.08(PI) + 0.57 (for PI > 5)

= 7.01e -0.08(LL) + 0.57 (for LL > 20)

Vane Shear Test

Mayne and Mitchell (1988):

c = 7.04[cu(field)]0.83

(kN/m2)

(kN/m2)

cu ( field )
OCR
o

Vane Shear Test

Mayne and Mitchell (1988): = 22[PI(%)]-0.48
222
Hansbo (1957):
w (%)
1
Larsson (1980):
0.08 0.0055( PI )

Cone Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Jamiolkowski et al. (1985); Kulhawy and
Mayne (1990):

qc
1
Dr 68 log
pa c

Robertson and Campanella (1983); Kulhawy

and Mayne (1990)
qc

tan 0.1 0.38
o

Cone Penetration Test

Granular Soil
Anagnostopoulos et al. (2003):

qc

pa 7.6429D 0.26
50
N60
D50 (mm); Range 0.001 1.0

Cone Penetration Test

Cohesive Soil
qc o
cu
NK

NK = 15 (electric cone)
NK = 20 (mechanical cone)

Cone Penetration Test

Cohesive Soil
Based on tests in Greece, Anagnostopoulos
et al. (2003) determined:
NK = 17.2 (for electric cones)
and
NK = 18.9 (for mechanical cones)
These field tests showed that
cu = fc /1.26 (for mechanical cones)
and
cu = fc (for electrical cones)

Cone Penetration Test

Cohesive Soil

Fr

frictional resistance fc

cone resistance
qc

Cone Penetration Test

Cohesive Soil
Mayne and Kemper (1988):
c = 0.243(qc)0.96

MN/m2

MN/m2

and
qc o

OCR 0.37
o

1.01

where o and o = total and effective stress,

respectively