(THE STANDARD PENETRATION TEST ~ ITS APPLICATION AND INTERPRETATION Part 2: M. A. STROUD, MA, PhD, MICE, Arup Geotechnics ‘This paper considers the application and interpretation of the Standard Penetration Test in the wide variety of soils and rock encountered in the UK. In particular, attention is focused on vhat information the SPT can provide on the strength and stiffness of these are provided for overconsolidated sands and gravels, iaterials. Correlations fed sands, overconsolidated ‘normally consoli clays, veak rocks and Chalk. The importance of @ly in che interpretation of the strength of granular materials is denonstrated, as is the importance of strain dependency in the understanding of stiffness in all materials. vrRopueroN ‘The Standard Penetration Test is like the friend you've known for a long time: maybe a Little taken for granted; there providing support when all elae fails; given to frustrating habits. Neither is above eriticien, but both perhaps get criticised more than they’ should. Of course the SPT can be done badly, But we should not forget that ground is naturally variable. We should not necessarily expect, tidily bunched data. The scatter of SPT results in Thanes gravel is more likely to be a statement of reality in the ground than a foible of the test procedure. Im developing our correlations it is important to relate SPT data to fundamental sos Properties if we can. Tt is more useful to Felate N values to shear strength, for example, than to relate them directly to shaft friction of piles. Tt {s nore useful to relate N values to soil stiffness than directly to settienent. In oth cases Lf we understand the relationship of N to the basic paraneters we can extend this application to a whole variety of different geotechnical situations. ‘This report attempts to draw together and to @evelop some of the experience contained in the papers presented to this Conference, together With past work. Correlations of X value with two basic parancters perhaps most widely used Im practice, strengeh and stiffness, will be examined for each of the following materials commonty found in the Uk: 2) sands and gravels ao 2) insensitive weak rocks 3) Chalk. one of the principal advantages of the SPT is that Lt hae sonething useful to tell us about all these materials and since three out of four fof them can commonly be found in one borehole, the SPT has a big advantage over other less versatile forns of in sits testing. In some naterials, such as many glacial tills, the SPT fs the only in situ test which can readily and ‘economically be relied on. Ponstaton testing int the UK. Thomas Telford, London, 1989) SANDS AND GRAVELS Free draining granular materials are traditionally the materials most often tested by SPT but they also provide data which give rise to the greatest debate and criticism. The work of Burland and Burbidge (1985) is an important step forvard in clarifying many of the issues, There remains, however, the aitficulty of understanding the physical significance in foundation performance of their compressibility index T_, upon which their correlations depend, defined as the inverse slope of the pressure/settlenent curve divided by B, where B is the footing breadth, .e., Rr aoe fq BT, Te may be helpful to look at a few basic relationships. Imagine a body of sand with constant relative density, such as that represented in Figure 1a.\ For this material SPT N values will increase with depth as indicated in Figure 1b, because Nis a function of current moan effective stress level (Clayton, Hababa and Simons, 1985). Stiffnes: represented by elastic Young's Modulus £' is algo a function of mean effective stress level fan in such a material gives a similar variation with depth as N (Figure 1c). Thus if wwe were to look for correlations: a) with relative density, we vould want to correct the N value for depth to give one characteristic value while >) with etiemess £, ve would look for relationships with NW uncorrected for depth. Pig 1 Sands and gravels: basic relationships »SESSION: STANDARD PENETRATION TEST cn ° 10 20 100 € & e FIELD TEST DATA Fal 12 NC | tine sands 200] e0c 4 1 NC Coarse sands LABORATORY TESTS. Marcuson & TAsiegancusky (1977) Gibbs & Holtz (3987) 300) Fig 2 Correction for overburden pressure (after Skempton, 1936) strength Let us first look at the parameters of strength which emerge from an appreciation of relative density. We fizet need to correct for overburden pressure in the way vhich 1s well known, Felating N to the corrected value, Ny, appropriate to a vertical effective Stress of i0Gia/n?, using the expression N, = C,¥ Figure 2 sumarises the available field data collected by skempton (1986) together with the variation of laboratory test data produced by Marcuson and Bieganousky (1977) and Gibbs and Holtz (1957). The plot indicates that for normally consolidated sands the variation of with overburden pressure is relatively insensitive to grading. Limited field and laboratory data suggests that the effect of overconsolidation on Cy 1s also small. te ‘Skenpton (1986) pointed out that the original correlation between descriptions of relative Gensity and N value proposed by Terzaghi and Peck (1948) should properly be corrected for the energy levels used in modern SP? practice. He arrived at the relationship shown in Figure 3 of relative density, D., against the standardised* SPT value, (¥,)¢y. THe 0 Vieote] too | Madman] dence so} Field dota ‘= NC Coarse sands #00 © NC | fine sands © Fal 40h 4 2 Terzaghi & Peck (1948) /o 20} 4 ° T L L 1 0 ee) RELATIVE DENSITY D, % Fig 3 Effect of relative density, based on Field data (after Skempton, 1986) relationship correlates well with the field Gata for normally consolidated sands of fine ‘and coarse grading. Data for £i11 and for laboratory tests fall below this line. ‘This sane relationship Le shown in Figure 4 as the full Line curve. Aleo shown is the correlation with 9" proposed by Peck, Hanson land Thornburn (1953), modified as a result of using ()¢o- If penetration resistance in @ sand of given relative density is controlled by the mean effective stress as the work of Clayton et al (1985) suggests, then it is to be expected that the relationship in Figure 4 will be aifferent for overconsolidated materials. sing working similar to that used by Skempton (1986) it can be shown to a first approximation (see Appendix A) that the relationship between relative density and (W)_, varies with overconsolidatlofratio as indicated in Figure 4, For a given value of (W,)¢q it is evident that the effect of overconsolfdation ratio on " is mare significant for dense materials than For loose. an alternative method of estimating #* was proposed by Cornforth (1973) in which the critical state value of the angle of friction 1, vas first measured by static angle of rifose tests. To this was added the dilatancy component "82, which was found to vary with relative denas®}. Modern UK practice using the autonatic trip monkey gives 8 values equivalent to the standard No without correction. (N,J_) values are obtaingd by correcting for everbirGdn usingViocte rm ns 35 5065 85 190 t 4 T TTT eck, Hanson | 20] and Thornburn (1953) _} a0 leo 60] 20 eee a ANGLE OF INTERNAL FRICTION. Gdegrees) Fig 4 Effect of ovexconsolidation ratio on the relationship between (M),, and angle of friction @” vee Bolton (1986) collected together data for 17 different sands. Figure 5 shows the variation of i=", with relative density for a mean effectiSG stress at failure in the range 4150-600kN/n?**. Plane strain values were higher than triaxial values as would be ‘expected. Bolton reported that values of 6 varied from about 33° for the quartz sands ES 37° for sands containing a significant proportion of feldspar. Taking a value of §, = 33° relevant to quartz sands and assuming Flat the relationship between (N)g, and relative density in Figure 3 is appropriaf@ to quartz sands with #1, = 33, then a relationship between (i) gq and" can be obtained as plotted in Figufe§ea and 6b for triaxial and plane strain configurations yespectively. There is gone evidence to suggest that for a given material #*, in plane strain is a little higher than for Eiaxtal loading. However, the conservative aesumption is made hero that they are the sane. Also ‘shown for comparison in Figure 6 is the relationship between (hi), and " fron Peck Hanson and Thornburn, rép{Stted from Figure 4. Because of the curvature of the faslure envelope, 6" is here measured as a secant value." will be higher at lover stress Tovels and lower at higher stress levels (see Bolton, 1986) - PAPERS 1-9 — INTRODUCTION: STROUD 20 T T T T = 180-600 kN/m® & measured as secant value 16 ° plane stain, 3 of on 6 80100 Variation of 8'=p" density (after Boffon 1986) Fig 5 with relative Tt 1s ovident from Pigure 6a that the relationships derived from triaxial testing are in broad agreenent with the Peck, Hanson and ‘Thornburn results, although these latter underestinate 9" at Iow (M,)¢q values. In plane strain, hovever, as dolla be appropriate for retaining wall design for example, the Peck, Hanson and Thornburn results Significantly underoctimate 9". ‘The correlations are clearly very sensitive to the value of 8°, appropriate to the material in question. ValGis of g*, found in the Literature are presenti in Table Cl (Appendix ©) for uniformly graded and well graded materials where description of particle shape are available. The variation of #1, with particle shape ds plotted in Figuré"7 from this Gata for triaxial testing. ‘Typical Bt, values may be sunmarised ag follows: uniformly graded querte feldapar rounded sor ‘sub rounded 32° ub angular angular aa very angular 36° so" well graded sub rounded 36° angular ae" ile selatlenhip of es with Sree Cai Satur of eas shan'G@ut fy for erate, wilifnaicate a generally loose or very loose 3SESSION 1: STANDARD PENETRATION TEST ee fe ee tak Sov = 3 150-600 KN/m* aa ae triaxial aol. a 38} 36 , 34 Peck, Hanson and 4 Thorburn (1953) 48; a6 447° plane strain a2] ao} Fr) 36 34) Peck, Hanson and a2 7.7 Thorburn (1953) 4 sol a | 01020 30 40 50 60 70 00 eo © Hig 6 Relationship netween ()gg ahd f* for mteriels with gee = So 2oees0e. mi te probably because in very loose sands the SPT readily breaks down the metastable sand structure and the local confining pressures are greatly reduced leading to low X values, For loose materials consideration of ly is thus more inportant than w value. At higher relative densities, however, and for a given overconsolidation ratio it is probable that (ig, 1s 2 odes | Wt rounded Teles] 8] ava 2 rftoo| 3 | ie | Ter a) ROUNONESS R (see Youd, 1972) aa ertemiy grades 5 a) 4 40 38 36 4 Poy 34] 32 4 -| ee. | ° Pig 7 Relationship between particle shape and fi, based on triaxial tests proportional to the bearing capacity factor, Nar and thus 4s uniquely related to 9". This possibility is explored in Figure 8a where the (Ql,)¢) v- 8" curve for normally consottafed materials under triaxial loading fand having @" = 33° has been replotted from Pigure 6a. Riso shown is a curve AA of N against #* from Berezantsev (1961) with tHe horizontal scale adjusted to provide the best fit with the SP? curve, The £it ds close over much of its length supporting the view that (W,)¢9 £8 proportional to N_ at moderate to nidnGetative densities. T8neative curves are drawn for materials with 1, = 31, 35° and 37°. The effect of overcofolidation de indicated in Figures 8b and So for over consolidates ratio of 3 and 10 respectively. Similar curves could be draw for plane strain the pattern of behaviour identified in Figure @ has implications for the relationship between (Wi,)¢9 and relative density given in Figure 3. rakifi§ each of the curves in Figure @ and using the relationship between #'-9" and relative donsity shown in Pigure 5, it°Ys possible to construct curves of (l,);) against relative density shown in Figured §°ror materials with alfferent #1). Evidently the value of g1, has a significant effect on the relationsh{B between (yg, and relative density. corrohorative data are hard to find but some indicators are given in Pigure 9b where relative density has heen measured in the Field. Well graded gravels and sands were investigated by Yoshida et al. (1988) giving average (,)¢0 values in the range 50 to 60 for average relaflve density in the range 65 toPAPERS 1-9 — INTRODUCTION: STROUD al, Normally i consoled aol, 28H 4 Pe ee 0 204060 80 100 «0 20 a0 80 Bo ” eo © so Pig © Variation of 9" and (M,)gq with 92, and ocR 79%. No strength values were quoted, but & bata for the heavily overconsolidated Norwich value of $i in the region of 36° would not be Crag aands_ in Figure Sc ere els0 taken fron unreasonab{S for these well graded materials. Data for normally consolidated sands are taken From Pigure 3 and skempton (1986). Judging by ‘the maximun and minimum voids ratios for these sands (= 1.0 to 1.2, @.,, = 0.56 to 0.75) they are"ifkely to be angull#"to sub angular in particle shape (sce Table Cl and Youd, 1972). Thus the value of f= 33° chosen for the Line Linking this data if’Pigure 3 ana Figure 9a is Skempton (1986). Also shown ie a point for the overconsolidated Bagshot sands provided in the paper to this conference by Barton et al (1988), for which (M)¢5 = 85 and D, = Bas. Bt, of 34° de indicated’wnich again" Ls not ufifeasonable for this angular uniformly graded paterial. Laboratory tests carried out by Yoshida et al (1988) on nomally consolidated material showed 1ikely to be appropricte. (leq values 358 higher for moderately well v y v [lose] teoee waster | Done lean] [love] Loote | Mes | Dee loan eae / 80 60 (ideo 40 20 ) ® Fig 9 ° 0204060100 De % 2, % © Fine sands | chompton A Well graded sand 1 coms sands !SH=m™ION (1886) nd grave © Sand 1 Fine sand © Norwich Crag_Skempton (1986) fem sand Yoshida et al (r988) 'Y Bagshot Sand Barton (1988) fomsand ang -s.ang ) variation of (W1,)gq and relative density with #!,, and ocRSESSION 1: STANDARD PENETRATION TEST 60) a: T T TTT 0 =| 8 a GO 4 | é oo fo For constant 8 unit weight bearing stress, for model footing tests CE aes | a D, 0%) is 258 20h. oar 2, = 47% on H 2 00 a8 Leen ring pressure o| Sees o 2 4 6 8 1 70 P settement a 2 B footing breadth 5% 7 Pig 11 Normalised plot of settlement against ’ Point of local failure aby by = 21% o20 a0 60 £ Bi Fig 10 Behaviour of model footing on sand at various relative densities (after Vesic, 1973, 8 = 36mm) gradea gravel than for uniform fine sand at the fame relative density. Similarly, tolubec et al (1972) found for model penetration tests. Carried out in the laboratory on normally consolidated sands, that angular sands vith B:, = 34° showed N'values twice those for r8inded sands with J, = 30" at the sane relative density andWepth. A very similar pattern Ls evident in Figure 9a. More field data is required to confirm the sensitivity of the relationships in Pigures © and 9 to #!, and overconsolidation ratio. stistn ‘The prediction of settlement of footings on granular materials involves estinating stiffness. Tt $e now widely accepted that stiffness in many materials is strain Gopendent, the stiffness at small strains being greater than at larger strains. A practical difficulty then arises of how to estimate strain level in a useful way in a loaded foundation. s by Vesic. A possible approach is suggested by tests Carried out by vesic” (2979) on a model. footing Of constant breadth in sands of varying Gensity. The resulte of Vesic's teste are Sumarised in Figure 10 vhere normalised bearing pressure = settlenent plots are show for four relative densities. The point st thich locel shear fallore was observed to cesar a indicated on each plot. Interestingly thie point orcurs ar approrinetely the sane Settlement in each case, Figure 11 shows the fata fron each of the teste plotted on the same Graph of 9/4, ageinet settlenent where Sethe sietnllS bearing strors at the poinlSe ocal failure. Te is evident that to © firet approximation there is'a unique relationship Treweon "degree of lending @/a,.7 and Settlement for varying density. ‘This suggests that a/q, 4, is an indirect measure of shear etrail Im footing design q is known and a), can be yeadily estimated using bearing caldSiey factors incorporating an allowance for local failure, such as those in Figure Bl (see Appondix B). We have seen that both stiffness £' and W vary With mean effective stress level in the ground. Te may therefore be fruitful to consider the ratio E'/iiz. and its variation with strain level or dffree of loading /ay_+ Figure 12 shows data from a wide range of spread footings, raft foundations and large scale plate tests on overconsolidated sands. ‘The data is taken from those case histories referred to by Burland and Burbidge (1985)PAPERS 1-9 — INTRODUCTION: STROUD a ee 14) n Jes 3 jo f up a ¢3 oe _ wok 3 e ° 2 : 2 3 a 3 3 3 3 net wu Pig 12 Variation of B'/Aiz, with degree of loading for overconsolidated sands and gravels where standacd Fenetsatfon Tests were carried ‘ite, the data relater to early Anerican or OE Practice for which the °F rod energies were over than they sre now. ConesGeration of the data presented by Skorpion (1980) suggeste that for sodern Ue practice My will be tower by a factor of shoot 0.8. The‘ values given in the cise histories have therefore been reduced by Gov. "The valve of guy has been calculated in tach case using Hey GHfoes corrected for Gverburden to givin )on. values of 9" were then chosen using Pigh:€°S together with hearing capacity factors eppropsiate to local Shear fafluce af Goscribed in Appendix Bs The bearing pressure used, qjogy ie the average net crfoctive bearing peesewlfTacting on the foundation. The veloe of 8" baa been estimated from the data given in the case histories owing Unear elastic theory and is thus the average secant stiffness Heneath the foundation under Soading qc. Further details of the assumption$*nade are given in Appendix B. Working foundations generally were found to hhave values of q.04/4,,, less than about 0.1, ite footing teste and large plate rests with Rreadthe in the range 1 to-an were taken to higher doqreat of Teadings giving gio ne the range 0.1 to 0.4. Data for. che tcgdE Foundacione give fow degrees of loading and Covresponding high values of ©" gos in ‘raft Te fs evident that the relationship between E* and tg, is strongly strain dependent. Tt is Liceli°nonder that the search for simple relationships between E* and N in the past has proved so frustrating in the absenca of Consideration of strain or degree of loading. ‘The data in Pigure 12 have been replotted in Figure 13 and a mean trend Line has been added. Algo plotted in Figure 13 are the data from case histories of structures on nomally consolidated sande, Here the observed behaviour is somewhat different. while the data are rather more limited they suggest thet stiffness is significantly less affected by Shear strain in these materiale, with the ratio of E'/M_ decreasing from about’ 2NN/n? to uumv/a? §9 toading increases. For values of Spoe/Tyze, 1% eRce8e Of about 0.1 the stiféness of*normally consolidated sands ts roughly half that given by overconsolidated sands. Cortoboration from Laboratory Test Some corroboration of the trend in overconsolidated saterials can be found in the field of soil dynamics. Let us first consider behaviour at very low strain levels. Pigure 14 shows the variation of small strain shear stiffness G_ with ¥ value as found by Tmal and %SESSION I: STANDARD PENETRATION TEST aur Fig 13 Variation of 1/5 Tonoveht (1982) based on soasuronent of the elostty of shear waves theowsh sands, and Grovets te the fleld. A seraighe Zine felutiongntp vas proposed by the authors as oot fit tothe datay as indicated, Horever, She Line representing G, IN faves giver Sryoahly slnost as goods fit and ie more Ssetat for present posposes. now c, = _®'o and for Japanese SPT. aa) procedures se is reasonable to essune Bog Lat W (Skenpton 1906) thuw assuming U2 0,25, the Felutlonsnip. @/w = Tian becomes E'\/N,. = 16MN/m?. Sich a value is ConatatensSottQ the vend of asta in Figure 13 for overconsoliaaeed sands and gravels st Wry eles the decrease of shear modulus with shear strain for snnds has been aeudied by number of Buthors:) Garver fom seed and/tOries, (1970) tnd Dehida et at (0980) are shown in Figure 15, Eited on dynenic and eyelic toeding tests on 8 wariety of aande- Tt fe 20 be expected that the stitmesses. so measured will be roughly Equivatene to the stiffness of cverconsel uated SGhas since in bowh cases the Tending takes Place eevertiaily below the yield locasy Tn Ender to selate these curves to the Bigg “auae plot for overconsoliaaved ance@@ais, BBtiveH*LE ts necessary to establish & Tolationship between shear strain and % with degree of loading for normally consolidated sands This can be done in a approximate inn SRY Sitove: Pggestad (1563) measured the distribution of strain beneath a nodel footing on normally consolidated sand and showed a relationship of increasing strain with 4/414 (Figure 16). 000! Bost fit ¢ rolling — ‘SHEAR MODULUS Go MN/m# Le a ‘0 70% Pig 14 Relationship between small strain shear modulus Gand N values (after Imai ‘and Tonoufhs, 1982)Range of values Seed & ldriss 1970, 10# 10? 107 107 1 SHEAR STRAY % Fig 15 Variation of secant shear podulus 6 with shear strain By averaging the strains to a depth of twice the footing width a relationship can be obtained between average shear strain Y and G/a,y¢7 a8 shown in Figure 17. This relitfonship is evidently broadly the same over | wide-range of relative densities. Now from the field data given in Figure 13 it is possible to estinate the ratio of stiffness between overconsolidated and normally consolidated materials at a given q.34/414° ‘Thus the curve from Eggestaa's data in Figure 17 for normally consolidated sanés can be proportioned to give a corresponding curve for overconsolidated materials, as shown. Using this curve and the value of B' /iigg = 16 Mi/n? established earlier, and wnofing that 6/6, = E'/8",, it is now possible i = I De = | 20 a i i | : ys | | o24ee 0246 LERTICAL STRAW 5 LATERAL STRAW 6% Fig 16 Measured strains beneath a footing on normally consolidated sands (after Eqgestad, 1963. & = 200mm, D, = 448) PAPERS 1-9 — INTRODUCTION: STROUD o7 Derived from. Eggestad (1963) V% AVERAGE SHEAR STRAIN (over depth 28) Fig 17 Relationship between degree of leading and average shear strain beneath a feoting on sand to transpose the envelope of curves from Pigure 15 onto @ plot of ENN, against @o4/ay, Ae shown in Figure 18. 6 Snet “ate While it is recognised that this traneposition hae involved a nunber of rather sweeping generalisations, the trends are evidently similar and the broad agreenent of the laboratory data with the back analysed case histories is encouraging. curs Strength Undrained shear strength of overconsolidated clays in the mass can be related to N values in the moner proposed by Stroud (1974), using the sinple relationship c, = fN whore £, is a constant for a given material. The SPT data upon which the correlations wore based were derived from modern UK practice and so the paraneter £, is more properly defined by fa" 81 Neo ‘the variation of f, with plasticity index is shown in Pigure 19. stiftness ‘The drained stiftness of overconsolidated clays in vertical loading, B', can be back-figured from cage histories as for sands, Figure 20 shove data from @ number of raft and spread foundations for large structures on overconsolidated clays plotted against Snet/uie 2F Pefore. Im each case 4,4 has been estinated using Arsined strength paraneters. In a number ofSESSION 1: STANDARD PENETRATION TEST 1g Range derived from range of | values shaded in Figure 15 det a Fig 18 EA ¥. ae /tyye for overSSns01i8Rted" Binds based on dynamic Sha cyclic laboratory tests cases, as indicated, it has been necessary to ‘assume values of N,. based on strength easurenents and afBropriate values of f, ‘the trend of decreasing stigéness with increased loading is again evident. For the rafts on London Clay at a dearee of loading of about 0.1 a value of B'/N<, = 900k/a* appears to be representative. Thi9 is equivalent to E¥/e, = 200, since from Figure 19, £, =4.5nv/n?. On the other hand’ for the piled rhee Gio 5)'q_,, is very much higher, the aegrae of loadlhg is consequently less and the stifiness is comreapondingly greater. Data for the materials of low plasticity appear to Lie above those for materials of high plasticity. A similar variation of stiffness with strain has been identified in the undrained leading of overcensolidated clays. Simpson et a (1979) proposed a model for London Clay in which the ratio of undrained Young's Modulus to undrained shear strength, 2B /o,, decreased with shear strain, see Figire 2¥, Mine model accounted for the range of stiftnesses typically neasured around deep excavations, in plate bearing tests and on laboratory samples at the Limit of accuracy of laboratory equipment at that tine. 3 ep phasowe | O10 2004000) coe 70) Pie Fig 19 Variation of £, = ¢/Migy with plasticity inddx fo of@rconsolidated Clays (after Stroud and Butler, 1975) In recent years significant advances have been pade in the accurate neasurenent of small straine in the laboratory (Burland and Symes, 1982). Pigure 22 shows triaxial tost data obtained by Jardine et al (1984) for undrained tests on London Clay and on an overconsolidated clay of low plasticity. the range of sti¢tness measured matches well that postulated in the ‘Simpson model. ‘The ceneval trend of results is also similar to that for the case histories in drained loading given in Figure 20. Im particular at very small strains the laboratory test data of Figure 22 gives values of F/c, for London Clay and the clay of low plasticley in the region of 1400 and 1900 respectively. Now, asguning that the shear modulus, 6, is the sane in drained and undvained loading, Bree, geuy “ara and 6, = £3Ngo Thus BY = B, Gt). f ELA Xp et Gru) e Taking V = 0.1 and Uy = 0.5, and f, values from Figure 19 we arrive at London Clay tow plasticity clay fy Gam) 4.5 5.5 sown) 3.3 0 ‘Thus from the laboratory data we would expect at very small strains a value of Bi /tigg = 3.3 x 1400KN/m? = 4.6MN/n? for London clay®Gna 410 x 1900kN/u? = 7.6MN/n? for low plasticity clays. These valuee are in keeping with the Broad trend of case history data in Figure 20 at very low values of @..4/4.1¢°PAPERS 1-9 — INTRODUCTION: STROUD | === 19) wow a e7 ier 56 Soe ee we | Fromture Gay 36" atts ots Br 3 neath ot at stan ' hans 5 — oe eee i Moraine Clay “1620420 250° 430" 30, WeFling (4974) aby Se ee Rion 2288 BR sca abe 5% ee * UT oe — the Soe oo 1 OG Fue Pig 20 Variation of B'/Nzy with degree of loading for overconsolidated clays ‘The laboratory data in Pigure 22, also indicates that for a given strain, low plasticity clays exhibit greater stiftnesses than high plasticity clays. Similar conclusions have been arrived at by others e.g. Foutsoftas et al (1980), Sun et al (1982) in resonant column and cyclic loading tests on clays in the triaxial apparatus. ‘There is some confirmation for this rend in the back-analysed caze history data in Pigure 20. The trend lines for PI = 15 and 50t from Figure 20 are replotted in Figure 23 together With the trend Lines obtained for granular aterials. Tt is evident that the curve for overconsolidated sande and gravela, lies st higher stiffnesses still, which is'consistent with this trend of increasing etiffness with decreasing plasticity. The overall picture in Figure 23 suggests that the behaviour of overconsalidated ailts will Lie somevhere between that of low plasticity clays and overconsolidated sands, but data are needed to confirm this. INSENSITIVE WEAK ROCKS ‘The SPT can be a very useful tool in weak rocks to obtain an approximate quantitative measure of rock properties. However, in rocks the influance of fissuring and jointing on the properties of the mass are even more important than for clays. Meigh and Wolski (1980) were right in emphasising that in these materials particularly, it is important to use our eyes fo understand the structure. Compressive strength An attempt to correlate M,, values with the compressive strensth of eff mass of rock is presented in Pigure 24. Tn these cases Strength has been deduced from the back analysis of pile teste and pressureneter tests, TYPICAL STRAINS FOR: Deep excavations Plate bearing tests 200} Laboratory tests ale '5 100) 6 # 50 20] 10 ° 2 4 6 8 70 SHEAR STRAIN % Pig 21 Variation of undrained Young's Modulus B, with shear strain, derived from a milthenatical model for London Clay (after Simpson and Scnmer, 1980)