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Reliability measures for consolidation settlement by means of CPT data

Conference Paper · September 2013

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Reliability measures for consolidation
settlement by means of CPT data
Pouya Pishgah
SNC-Lavalin, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Reza Jamshidi Chenari
The University of Guilan, Rasht, Guilan, Iran

ABSTRACT
A methodology is introduced for reliability calculation of consolidation settlement based on cone penetration test (CPT)
data. The measured data of corrected cone tip resistance ( ) is detrended using a quadratic trend and the residuals are
assumed to be lognormally distributed random field. Realizations of is generated by using statistical parameters of
residuals including standard deviation and the scale of fluctuation. The quadratic trend and the generated residuals are
then combined to correlate shear and bulk moduli as input consolidation properties for coupled analysis and
subsequently consolidation settlement was calculated by using finite difference method adopted in Monte Carlo
simulations. The results of reliability analysis are presented describing the range of possible settlements by considering
characteristics of uncertainties involved at the particular site. Maximum possible settlements must be smaller than the
allowable settlement to guarantee proper performance.

RÉSUMÉ
Une méthodologie est introduit pour le calcul de la fiabilité d'établissement de consolidation sur la base de données de
test de pénétration de cône (CPT). Les données mesurées corrigées résistance à la pointe du cône ( ) est redressée à
l'aide d'une tendance quadratique et les résidus sont supposés être distribués lognormale champ aléatoire. Réalisations
de est généré en utilisant des paramètres statistiques des résidus dont l'écart-type et l'ampleur des fluctuations. La
tendance quadratique et les résidus générés sont ensuite combinées pour corréler les modules de cisaillement et en
vrac en tant que propriétés de consolidation d'entrée pour l'analyse couplée puis tassement de consolidation a été
calculé en utilisant la méthode des différences finies adoptée en simulations de Monte Carlo. Les résultats de l'analyse
de fiabilité sont présentés pour décrire la gamme des implantations possibles en tenant compte des caractéristiques de
incertitudes liées à un site particulier. Colonies maximales possibles doivent être plus petit que le règlement admissible
pour garantir un bon fonctionnement.

1 Introduction be more work on how much effort is required to improve

The importance of variability analysis is increasingly
recognized in geotechnical engineering as reliability
based design (RBD) methods are assuming a prominent
role for the calibration of new design codes. However, in
geotechnical practice, there has been rather slow
progress in employing RBD, compared to other
engineering disciplines. A primary reason for this slow
progress is difficulty in estimating the variability of the
design properties of geo-material, which is essential for
any RBD procedure. A fundamental problem is the lack of
data. There is a tradition of basing conclusions in
laboratory testing programs on small numbers of tests. It
is quite common to encounter laboratory programs
consisting of three or four consolidation tests. Therefore
there are seldom enough data to support broad
conclusions about the statistics of soil properties.
Several studies have been published on the
variability of the properties of soils (e.g., Phoon and
Kulhawy 1995). Sometimes the values in these
publications are simply adopted into reliability calculations
without further efforts to establish the variability for the
particular project at hand. Despite the excellent work that
has been done on this issue, it is not a closed matter, and
more work needs to be done. In particular there needs to
the estimates for a particular site. However calculating the
actual variability of soil properties is one of the unresolved
problems in geotechnical risk and reliability (Christian and
Baecher 2011).
Among in situ testing methods, cone penetration
(CPT) measurements are ideal for assessing soil
variability because a large volume of near continuous
data can be collected in a cost-effective way, the test has
good repeatability, the equipment is highly standardized,
and the procedure is well-defined and almost operator-
independent. Moreover, CPT has strong theoretical basis
for interpretation and numerous semi-empirical
correlations have been developed to estimate
geotechnical parameters from the CPT for a wide range of
soils (e.g, Robertson 2009). A number of researches on
the application of CPT measurement in reliability analysis
for different geotechnical problems have recently been
published (e.g., Uzielli 2004 ; Haldar and Babu 2008 ;
Doherty and Gavin 2010 ; Kenarsari et al. 2011 and
2012).
In this article, a methodology is introduced for
reliability calculation of consolidation settlement based on
statistical review of CPT data. This general approach can
be an effective technique to predict consolidation
settlement using probabilistic analyses considering
uncertainties involved at a specific site. A deterministic
analysis based on simple uncoupled (Terzaghi) approach
is also conducted to compare with proposed reliability
method.
2 CPT data and statistics
In present study, a typical CPT sounding from the
Adapazari area, Turkey was selected for stochastic
analyses. To exclude lithological heterogeneity a clay -
silty clay layer with 7.36 meter thickness was identified
from the CPT profile for variability analysis by adopting
the classification charts proposed by Robertson (1990),
as illustrated in Figures 1 to 2.
Figure 1. Normalized soil behavior type with Adapazari
data
Figure 2. Normalized soil behavior type with Adapazari
data
In soft clays and silts the measured must be corrected
for pore water pressures acting on the cone geometry,
thus obtaining the corrected cone resistance, :
1 [1]
Where “a” is the net area ratio determined from laboratory
calibration and in this case this value is 0.75.The data set
consists of 368 measurements of corrected cone tip
resistance, , digitized at a 0.02 m interval
To guarantee stationary, a quadratic trend was
sought to remove from original data set. The original
measured data, quadratic trend and the residual
component are illustrated in Figure 3. Pishgah and
Jamshidi (2011 a,b) have shown that the deterministic
component of the inherent variability plays a prominent
role in consolidation behaviour of natural alluvial deposits.
The stochastic properties of the residual component can
be quantified thorough calculation of the standard
deviation and the correlation length.
qt (MPa)
-3 -1 1 3 5 7 9
0
Original CPT data
2
Depth (m)
3
Quadratic trend
Residual component
5
6
Figure 3. Detrending of CPT data
Standard deviation is translated into a more
recognized parameter, coefficient of variation (COV)
which is defined as the ratio of the standard deviation to
the deterministic mean value. Correlation length or the
scale of fluctuation which is defined as the distance over
which the data points have meaningful correlation. The
procedure proposed by Jones et al. (2002) was employed
to calculate the scale of fluctuation of the CPT residual
profile. Figure 4 shows how the lag distance varies with
the window size used in moving average scheme. The
plot peaks at 0.16 m; therefore the scale of fluctuation is
taken to be 0.16 m.
 0.18 (e.g., groundwater) through a soil. The saturated fast-flow
0.16
logic is used for simulating coupled fluid flow/deformation
Function of fluctuation (m)

of a porous medium (i.e., consolidation) by simply adding

0.14 the command “SET fastflow on”. This numerical scheme
0.12 provides faster solutions for consolidation calculations
which can be very time-consuming. The FLAC model for
0.1
one-dimensional consolidation problem is a column of 368
0.08 zones representing adjacent CPT readings and 100 kPa
pressure is applied at the top of the column to model the
0.06
surcharge effect.
0.04

0.02
0
0 0.5 1 1.5
Window size (m)
Figure 4. Calculation of the correlation length
Kulhawy and Phoon (1996) suggest the values
of scale of fluctuation for CPT parameters presented in
Table 1. In our case study, computed scale of fluctuation
for vertical direction for corrected cone tip resistance is
close to minimum of reported range.
4 Reliability analysis
2
CPT profiles were virtually reproduced using random field
theory and the stochastic properties acquired from the
original CPT profiles. Cholesky decomposition technique
was used to produce correlated random fields of .The
generated realizations of were then employed to
correlate shear modulus and produce equivalent profiles
of the shear modulus. The small strain shear modulus, ,
for young, uncemented soils can be estimated using the
following relationship proposed by Robertson (2009) :
. .
0.0188 10 [2]

Table 1. Scale of fluctuation values for CPT (Kulhawy and in which is soil behavior type index and is vertical
Phoon (1996)) total stress.
The above correlation was used to interpret input
Scale of Fluctuation shear modulus values for numerical modeling. A constant
Fluctuation Soil No. of (m) poison ratio of 0.35 was considered for correlation of the
Property
Direction Type Studies
Range Mean bulk modulus, K as an input parameter for numerical
Sand, modeling of coupled consolidation. Ultimate consolidation
7 0.1-2.2 0.9
Vertical Clay settlement is assumed to be independent of the hydraulic
Clay 10 0.2-0.5 0.3 conductivity of alluvial deposits, k. Therefore the variability
Sand,
11 3.0-80.0 47.9 of the permeability coefficient was neglected. Near 100
Horizontal Clay percent average degree of consolidation was sought as
Clay 2 23.0-66.0 44.5 an index for full consolidation settlement.
2000 Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to
investigate the effect of spatial variability of on
3 Consolidation problem consolidation settlement results as shown in Figure 5. The
results show that the consolidation settlement fluctuates
Soils are naturally, inherently variable because of the way between 8 and 11.5 mm. The mean settlement of 9.6 mm
they are formed and the continuous processes of the is considered as the most likely settlement value.
environment which work to alter them. Taking the
coefficient of consolidation as a constant is a major 12
shortcoming of conventional theory. It is well known that 11.5
consolidation properties must be treated independently
11
Settlement (mm)

and cannot be embodied into a single coefficient of

consolidation. Therefore it is very important to use a 10.5
coupled approach for proper modeling of consolidation 10
behavior of heterogeneous soils (Huang et al. 2010). 9.5
Consolidation is one type of fluid/solid
9
interaction, in which the slow dissipation of pore pressure
causes displacements to occur in the soil. This type of 8.5
behavior involves two mechanical effects. First, changes 8
in pore pressure cause changes in effective stress, which 7.5
affect the response of the solid. Second, the fluid in a
7
zone reacts to mechanical volume change by a change in 0 500 1000 1500 2000
pore pressure. For the coupled consolidation analysis in
present study, commercially finite difference code, FLAC Number of realizations
5.0 (Itasca 2006) is used that models the flow of fluid
Figure 5. Settlement results of Monte Carlo simulations
 Figure 6 shows the convergence of the mean 5 Deterministic analysis
settlement as the number of simulations increases. It can
be seen from Figure 6 that 2000 simulations were enough CPTu data can be used to directly estimate induced
to give reliable and reproducible estimates. settlements due to an external load. To validate reliability
results with a deterministic estimate of settlements,
9.8 following simple formula (based 1-D consolidation) is
used to estimate vertical settlements:
9.7
∑ [3]
Mean settlemeent (mm)

9.6
Where, and are applied footing pressure, layer
9.5 thickness and stress reduction factor according to
Boussinesq respectively. As shown in Figure 8. ,
9.4 Most likely settlement : 9.6 mm constrained modulus of soil layer can be estimated from
CPT results using the CPTet-IT software based on the
9.3 correlation suggested by Robertson (2009). For a
constant surface load, 100 , maximum settlement
result accumulated on top of the layer is 9.2 mm.
9.2
The computed consolidation settlement for deterministic
analysis (9.2 mm) is in the range of proposed settlement
9.1 estimation based on reliability analysis (8 and 11.5mm).
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Number of realizations

Figure 6. Influence of the number of Monte Carlo

simulations on mean settlement

Reliability theory can be employed to evaluate

the effects of uncertainties embedded in settlements
calculations and the probability that the computed most
likely settlement will be larger than allowable settlements
can be defined as probability of failure, P . A more
convenient measure of design risk is the reliability index,
β which is defined as Φ P in which Φ function is
the inverse standard normal cumulative function. Target
reliability index should be more than 3 for proper
performance. In Figure 7 reliability index is calculated for
different allowable settlements and it shows that target
Figure 8. Consolidation settlement for deterministic
reliability index will satisfy when the allowable settlements
analysis
is around the maximum possible settlement.
11.6
11.4 6 Conclusions
Allowable Settlemenet (mm)

11.2
CPT data can be used to evaluate uncertainties involved
11 at the specific site by generating corrected cone tip
resistance, based on statistical parameters of residual
10.8
components including the standard deviation and the
10.6 scale of fluctuation. The quadratic trend and the
generated residuals were superposed to realize profiles of
10.4
employed in subsequent coupled Monte Carlo
10.2 simulations. Realizations of were utilized for correlation
10 of shear modulus which are finally fed to the finite
difference formulation to calculate ultimate consolidation.
9.8 The results of 2000 Monte-Carlo simulation shows that
9.6 variation of has significant effect on settlement values.
0 1 2 3 4 5 Range of ultimate consolidation settlements was
computed and provides a means of estimating most likely
Reliability Index (β) settlement which is essential for reliability analysis.
Reliability concepts can be applied to settlements
Figure 7. Evaluation of reliability index for different analyses by comparing the most likely settlement and
allowable settlements allowable settlement. The probability of failure occurs
 when the most likely settlement is larger than allowable
settlement. The results of reliability index for different
allowable settlements demonstrate that for satisfactory
performance it is important that the allowable settlement
be larger than maximum possible settlements.
Pishgah Gilani, P., Jamshidi Chenari, R. 2011a.
Discussion of “Probabilistic Analysis of Coupled Soil
Consolidation” by Jinsong Huang, D.V. Griffiths and
Gordon A. Fenton, ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering. Vol. 137, No. 9,857-
858.

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