TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial variation of cone tip resistance for the clay site at Texas A and M University
AU - Kulatilake, Pinnaduwa H.S.W.
AU - Um, Jeong Gi
N1 - Funding Information: In the early 1990s the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and National Science Foundation (NSF) of USA provided funding to characterize 5 sites and develop them as bench mark sites with known soil properties to perform future geotechnical research and to evaluate performance of new field tests, design and construction procedures associated with soil engineering structures (Benoit and de Alba, 1993). These were called National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites (NGES). Out of these five sites, two were designated as level 1 sites. Texas A&M site at the Riverside Campus, USA was selected as a level 1 site. A sand site as well as a clay site exists at Texas A&M Riverside Campus. Both these sites come under NGES. A number of borings and various geotechnical tests have been performed on the soils that exist at the clay site to characterize the site (Simon and Briaud, 1996). Recently, Tumay and Bynoe (1998) performed 21 cone penetrometer tests at the Texas A&M clay site. Twelve of them were 2 cm2 friction minicone tests (MCPT), 5 were 10 cm2 friction cone tests (CPT) and the remaining 3 were 15 cm2 seismic cone tests (SCPT). The details of the cone penetrometers used and the test results are given in Tumay and Bynoe (1998). The layout of these tests on the clay site is shown in Figure 1. The bore-hole marked in the figure is the closest boring log available for the aforementioned cone penetrometer test locations. This boring log was obtained by Fugro-McClelland (1996) for the Texas A&M University (Appendix of Simon and Briaud, 1996). The tip resistance values from the cone penetrometer tests are used in this paper to analyze the spatial variation of the soil profile at the Texas A&M clay site.
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - The cone tip resistance data available for the clay site at Texas A and M University, USA (one of the National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites) are used to show how the spatial variation of a soil property can be quantified. It is suggested that the first step in quantifying the spatial variation of a soil property should be the identification or selection of the statistically homogeneous soil layers. A new simple procedure is suggested to identify statistically homogeneous layers in a soil profile. Through examples it is shown that the procedure works extremely well in identifying the statistically homogeneous layers. For the chosen statistically homogeneous layers, the spatial variation of cone tip resistance with depth is quantified in terms of a constant mean or a mean trend, variance/standard deviation/coefficient of variation or a variance around the mean trend, and a correlation or variogram function. Correlation distances in the depth direction were found to be between 0.1 and 0.5 m for the two soil layers investigated. It was shown that the correlation distance decreases in the presence of a global mean trend for the soil property. In such cases, it is important to note that a part of the correlation is automatically included in the mean trend function.
AB - The cone tip resistance data available for the clay site at Texas A and M University, USA (one of the National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites) are used to show how the spatial variation of a soil property can be quantified. It is suggested that the first step in quantifying the spatial variation of a soil property should be the identification or selection of the statistically homogeneous soil layers. A new simple procedure is suggested to identify statistically homogeneous layers in a soil profile. Through examples it is shown that the procedure works extremely well in identifying the statistically homogeneous layers. For the chosen statistically homogeneous layers, the spatial variation of cone tip resistance with depth is quantified in terms of a constant mean or a mean trend, variance/standard deviation/coefficient of variation or a variance around the mean trend, and a correlation or variogram function. Correlation distances in the depth direction were found to be between 0.1 and 0.5 m for the two soil layers investigated. It was shown that the correlation distance decreases in the presence of a global mean trend for the soil property. In such cases, it is important to note that a part of the correlation is automatically included in the mean trend function.
KW - Cone tip resistance
KW - Correlation coefficient
KW - National Geotechnical Experimentation Sites
KW - Spatial variation
KW - Statistical homogeneity
KW - Variogram
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U2 - 10.1023/A:1023526614301
DO - 10.1023/A:1023526614301
M3 - Article
SN - 0960-3182
VL - 21
SP - 149
EP - 165
JO - Geotechnical and Geological Engineering
JF - Geotechnical and Geological Engineering
IS - 2
ER -