Technical Summary 386.PDF

Saturated fine-grained soils can undergo large settlements over a long period of time. Therefore, the estimation of both the total settlement and the rate of change of cohesive soils under field loading is essential for geotechnical engineering design and analysis. The total settlement can be determined from deformation moduli such as the tangent constrained modulus, M, while the time rate of settlement is predicted using the vertical coefficient of consolidation, cv. The strength and consolidation characteristics of cohesive soils can be estimated from either laboratory or in-situ testing. The laboratory tests such as the oedometer consolidation test are usually conducted on small, presumably undisturbed intact samples. However, almost all recovered samples have a certain degree of disturbance, which makes the laboratory-derived parameters not entirely representative of in-situ conditions. The piezocone penetration testing (PCPT) has gained wide popularity for subsurface investigation, soil characterization and the evaluation of different soil parameters. The PCPT is robust, simple, fast and economical test that provides continuous soundings of subsurface soil. The PCPT is capable of distinguishing between different drainage conditions during penetration. Different interpretation methods have been proposed to determine the consolidation parameters of cohesive soils using the piezocone penetration and dissipation test data.