Determination of Strength and Index Properties of Fine-Grained Soils Using a Soil Minipenetrometer
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133, Issue 6
Abstract
This paper describes the use of a soil minipenetrometer (SMP) to determine the strength and index properties of fine-grained soils. The SMP has been developed to allow both fall cone and quasi-static penetration tests to be performed. Displacement controlled quasi-static penetration tests can be used for the direct measurement of undrained shear strength, both for remolded and undisturbed samples. In addition the quasi-static penetration test can be used to define an additional lower plastic limit parameter, the , which represents the moisture content of a fine-grained soil with an undrained strength 100 times that at the liquid limit. This approach offers the advantage that removal of the coarse fraction is not required to estimate the .
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Acknowledgments
The writers are grateful to the University of Brighton for sponsoring the research and development of the SMP, and providing funding support for the second writer.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133 • Issue 6 • June 2007
Pages: 667 - 673
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Nov 15, 2005
Accepted: Nov 22, 2006
Published online: Jun 1, 2007
Published in print: Jun 2007
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