Geo-Congress 2020
Piezocone Identification of Organic Clays and Peats
Publication: Geo-Congress 2020: Modeling, Geomaterials, and Site Characterization (GSP 317)
ABSTRACT
A recent study of over 40 organic clay sites subjected to piezocone penetration tests (CPTu) found that the conventional soil behavioral type charts did not identify these materials properly (specifically zone 2), but instead were mostly categorized as either zone 3 (clays) or zone 4 (silts). An alternate CPTu methodology is presented for a more reliable approach to detecting organic clays and peats which mainly requires three parameters: net cone resistance, effective cone resistance, and excess porewater pressures. Once properly identified, a simple expression is used to assess the profile of effective preconsolidation stress in these organic geomaterials in terms of the net cone tip resistance in a power law format.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciate the financial support provided by ConeTec Group of British Columbia. Thanks are given to Dr. James A. Schneider, USAE, St. Paul, MN for supplying information on the Minnesota site and to Dr. Leon van Paassen of Arizona State University for sharing the data from Toronto.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Congress 2020: Modeling, Geomaterials, and Site Characterization (GSP 317)
Pages: 541 - 549
Editors: James P. Hambleton, Ph.D., Northwestern University, Roman Makhnenko, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Aaron S. Budge, Ph.D., Minnesota State University, Mankato
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8280-3
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: Feb 21, 2020
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Chemicals
- Chemistry
- Clays
- Conical bodies
- Design (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Geomechanics
- Geometry
- Geotechnical engineering
- Geotechnical investigation
- Load and resistance factor design
- Load factors
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Mathematics
- Organic chemicals
- Organic compounds
- Organic matter
- Penetration tests
- Soil dynamics
- Soil mechanics
- Soil pressure
- Soil properties
- Soils (by type)
- Structural design
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