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Pressuremeter tests in the hard soils and soft rocks of Arak Aluminum Plant
site, Iran

Conference Paper · September 2016

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5th International Conference on Geotechnical and Geophysical Site Characterisation, Queensland, Australia, 2016

Pressuremeter tests in the hard soils and soft rocks of Arak Aluminum
Plant site, Iran
Ebrahim Asghari-Kaljahi
Assistant Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran
Zohreh Khalili
MSc of Geotechnical Engineering, P.O. Rahvar Consulting Engineers Company, Tehran, Iran
Shahabodin Yasrobi
Associate Professor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Tarbiat Modarres, Tehran, Iran

ABSTRACT: The Arak Aluminum Plant site is located in the east of Meyghan Lake in the central zone of
Iran. Generally, the underground layers consist of cohesive fine-grained soils at the top and weak rock layers
at the bottom. From top to bottom, after silty clay layers, there are hard soils or weak rock layers with classi-
fication of Claystone and Marlstone. The depth of rock layers varies from 6 to 12 m. The dry unit weights of
these layers are between 14 and 18 kN/m3. The uniaxial compression strength of them varies between 0.1 and
1.2 MPa. For evaluating of deformation modulus and stress-strain behavior of these very weak rocks more
than 70 number of Pressuremeter Menard test (PMT) were conducted in boreholes up to depth 30m. Accord-
ing to test results, PMT Modulus of hard soil and weak rock layers of this plant site vary in the range of 17 to
85 MPa. The limit pressure (PL) of PMT tests varies between 1 and 7.7MPa.

Nevertheless they are very useful in preliminary

1 INTRODUCTION
calculations and for estimate purposes. Table 1 gives
Pressuremeter Menard test (PMT) is a common in- the range of expected PMT limit pressure (PL) and
situ test used for site investigation. It has the advan- elastic modulus (E0) in various soils.
tages of simplicity and if it done properly, geotech-
nical parameters obtained from this test can be pre- Table 1. Expected values of E0 and PL in soils (Briaud 2013)
cised. It is almost full scale loading of soils during Clay
testing and it is applicable for most soil types and Soil
Soft Medium Stiff Very Stiff Hard
soft rocks (Chiang and Ho, 1980). Strength
PL (kPa) 0-200 200-400 400-800 800-1600 >1600
Different studies about pressuremeter tests are E0 (MPa) 0-2.5 2.5-5.0 5.0-12.0 12.0-25.0 >25.0
presented in these years. Typical Young modulus
Sand
values that determined by presurmeter for Mercia
Mudstone are between 100 and 1200MPa (Cripps Soil
Loose Compact Dense Very Dense
Strength
and Taylor, 1981). PMT were used by many re- PL (kPa) 0-500 500-1500 1500-2500 >2500
searchers for hard soils and soft rocks as Marsland, E0 (MPa) 0-3.5 3.5-12 12-22.5 >22.5
and Powell (1990), Clarke and Allen (1989) Isik, et
al. (2008). The aim of this study is analysis the results of
Leach et al. (1976) reported in-situ pressuremeter PMT tests carried out on hard soils and soft rocks in
Menard tests on Mercia Mudstone from Kilroot that the Arak Aluminum Plant site, located in the north
gave undrained shear strength values up to 230% of Arak, Iran (Fig. 1) with 49.9258E degree and
higher than values obtained from triaxial tests on 34.1656N degree.
samples from the same depth and the overall mean
value was slightly more than double. Similar results 2 PRESSUREMETER TEST THEORY
were obtained for comparative elastic modulus ob-
tained from pressuremeter, plate loading, and oedo- The pressuremeter is a cylindrical device that may
meter tests (Meigh, 1976). These showed that pres- be expanded against the walls of a borehole. There
suremeter results were highly variable but generally are broadly three types of pressuremeter, the self-
much higher than triaxial and oedometer results. Al- boring type (e.g. ‘Camkometer’), the push-in type
so correlations based on many PMT tests performed (e.g. the Building Research Establishment’s ‘PIP’),
at different sites in clay along with other measured and the original type which required a pre-formed
soil parameters were presented by Briaud (2013). borehole (e.g. ‘Menard pressuremeter’) (Mair and
These correlations exhibit significant scatter and Wood, 1987). These are all able to measure un-
should be used with caution. drained strength and deformability simultaneously,

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