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SUMMARY:Unsaturated Soil and the Cone Penetration Test - Philip Wallbridge
 \, CUED
DTSTART:20101203T160000Z
DTEND:20101203T170000Z
UID:TALK26415@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Zelda Stuck
DESCRIPTION:Partially saturated soils consist of three phases: solid parti
 cles\, air and water occupying the pore space. Their stress strain behavio
 ur is complex and is influenced by many factors including externally appli
 ed stresses\, soil type\, structure\, density and suction arising from sur
 face tension across the air-water interface within the soil. Most notably\
 , suction increases the shear strength\, and stiffens the soil skeletal re
 sponse. Upon wetting\, however\, this increase in the stiffness of the soi
 l skeleton is lost and may be associated with large and non-reversible vol
 umetric collapse of the soil structure. Partially saturated soils are wide
 ly spread and these behavioural characteristics need to be dealt with in m
 any engineering problems including foundations\, fills and embankment dams
 \, pavements and airfields as well as natural and made slopes. \nThe engin
 eering of partially saturated soils requires expensive and time consuming 
 site characterisation including soil borings\, undisturbed sampling and la
 boratory testing in an unsaturated state.  \nPerforming the versatile and 
 non-disturbing cone penetration test (CPT) could allow less costly and mor
 e rapid site characterisation.  The evaluation of deformation and shear st
 rength parameters of saturated soils from CPT results has a history going 
 back to 1932\, but no correlations currently exist for partially saturated
  soils\, and engineers are left to interpret the CPT results performed in 
 real unsaturated soils\, using correlations developed for saturated soils 
 leading to unknown misrepresentations in the estimated soil properties.\nT
 his talk presents the centrifuge modelling and full scale site experiments
  that have been performed in order to interpret the results of the CPT in 
 unsaturated/partially saturated soils\, and to develop for the first time 
 correlations for in situ characterization of unsaturated/partially saturat
 ed soils. \n
LOCATION:Engineering Department - Lecture Room - LR3
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