INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR

SOIL MECHANICS AND

GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

This paper was downloaded from the Online Library of

the International Society for Soil Mechanics and
Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The library is
available here:

https://www.issmge.org/publications/online-library

This is an open-access database that archives thousands

of papers published under the Auspices of the ISSMGE and
maintained by the Innovation and Development
Committee of ISSMGE.

The paper was published in the proceedings of the 10th

European Conference on Numerical Methods in
Geotechnical Engineering and was edited by Lidija
Zdravkovic, Stavroula Kontoe, Aikaterini Tsiampousi and
David Taborda. The conference was held from June 26th to
June 28th 2023 at the Imperial College London, United
Kingdom.
Proceedings 10th NUMGE 2023
10th European Conference on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering
Zdravkovic L, Kontoe S, Taborda DMG, Tsiampousi A (eds)

© Authors: All rights reserved, 2023

https://doi.org/10.53243/NUMGE2023-237

The effects of partial drainage on the interpretation of pore

pressure dissipation test data: a numerical study
R.W.L. Chia1, Z.Z. Wang1, S.H. Goh1
1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

ABSTRACT: Partial drainage may occur during cone penetration in intermediate soils, which could complicate the subsequent
interpretation of pore pressure dissipation test data. This study adopted the Press-Replace Method (PRM), coupled with
consolidation analysis, to numerically simulate the entire process of cone penetration under partially drained conditions, followed
by the dissipation test after the cone has reached the desired depth. The excess pore pressure responses at different points in the
soil during the partially drained penetration process were examined and compared with published solutions. The decay of the
excess pore pressures during the post-penetration dissipation phase following different cone penetration rates were also
examined, and the results were compared with published results obtained from centrifuge testing. In particular, the effects of
partial drainage arising from different cone penetration rates on the time taken for 50% excess pore pressure dissipation (t50)
were studied, and a trend was proposed. Finally, a preliminary assessment between t50 with partial consolidation, due to drainage,
was illustrated and validated with similar soil types.

Keywords: Cone Penetration Test; Press-Replace Method; Partial Drainage; Dissipation Test Interpretation; Finite Element Modelling

1 INTRODUCTION penetration. Additionally, the subsequent pore pressure

decay behaviour was studied.
A Cone Penetration Test (CPT), a widely used site
A simplified finite-element method, Press-Replace
investigation tool, provides an uninterrupted profiling
method (PRM), is readily applied to simulate the cone
of the ground. While the soundings can be used to
penetration process. PRM can be applied to model large
characterise soil types and estimate engineering
deformation scenarios without the need of remeshing
properties through theoretical and empirical
and mesh update schemes like Arbitrary Lagrangain
correlations, the correlations are largely established in
Eulerian (ALE) and Remeshing Interpolation
purely undrained (clay) or purely drained (sand)
Technique with Small Strain (RITSS). Development
penetrations (Robertson and Cabal, 2015). In a partially
and further application of PRM in CPT can be found in
drained penetration, part of the excess pore pressures
literature (Anderen et al., 2004; Paniagua et al., 2014;
generated during penetration are concurrently Engin et al., 2015; Lim et al., 2018; Wang and Goh,
dissipated. Depending on the extent of partial drainage,
2018; Chia et al., 2022).
pore pressure measured at the end of a partially drained
The published literatures show, the application of
penetration can be significantly lower than that in an
PRM to estimate resistance behaviour in undrained cone
undrained penetration.
penetration has been well reported, with some covering
A dissipation test can then be conducted upon partially drained penetrations (Chia et al., 2022).
completion of penetration. While the cone is held
However, there is little study covering the ability of
stationary, pore pressure developed during penetration
PRM to predict pore pressure developments and its
is allowed to decay with time. Results measured
decay behaviour under partially drained and drained
coupled with theoretical correlations are used to
scenarios. This article begins by validating the excess
estimate permeability and compressibility pore pressures that are generated during penetration,
characteristics of the soil. However, existing
under different drainage conditions. This is followed by
correlations used for dissipation test data interpretation
replicating the dissipation test experiments conducted in
cannot be readily applied when intermediate soil types
a centrifuge set-up from Mahmoodzadeh and Randolph
(e.g., clayey/sandy silts and residual soils) are
(2014) and Mahmoodzadeh et al. (2014). The computed
encountered. results were compared and validated against the
By simulating cone penetrations at different rates,
literature. Lastly, based on the published results, a
this study employed a finite-element technique to model
relationship between t50 and normalised penetration
the changes in pore pressure measurements of a fully
velocity V is proposed.
undrained, partially drained, and fully drained

1 NUMGE 2023 - Proceedings

 Finite element, finite difference, discrete element, material point and other methods

Table 1. Key set-up details of respective literatures used in this study

Soil Properties Input
Soil Soil- Over-
Author/ Approach model Cone φ k burden
λ κ M e0 K0 OCR
Input Contact (°) (ms-1) stress
(kPa)
Mahmoodzadeh et
Modified
al. (2014)/
Cam-clay Smooth 0.205 0.044 23 - - 2.25b - 1 109
Centrifuge
model
Experimenta
Modified
Sheng et al. (2014) /
Cam-clay Smooth 0.3 0.05 - 1 1E-7 2 0.5 1.4 50
Updated Lagrangian
model

Ceccato et al. (2016)

/ Material Point
1.02E
Method & Orazalin Modified
-3 to
(2017) / Lagrangian Cam-clay
FEM with an Smooth 0.205 0.04 - 0.92 1.02E 1.41 0.68 1 50
model
automated procedure -8^
for remeshing

Note:
λ: virgin compression index; κ: swelling index; φ: effective friction angle; M: friction coefficient – (6sinφ)/(3-sinφ); k:
hydraulic conductivity; e0: initial void ratio; K0: coefficient of earth pressure at rest; OCR: overconsolidation ratio
^: Hydraulic conductivity is varied to obtain partial drainage conditions
a
: Key parameters; initial void ratio (e0), hydraulic conductivity (k/ms-1), vertical coefficient of consolidation (cv/mm2s-1) can
be derived from theoretical equations reported in Mahmoodzadeh et al. (2014)
b
: void ratio at p’=1kPa on virgin consolidated line

2 METHODOLOGY
A displacement control scheme governs the application
of PRM to model penetration problems (Engin et al.,
2015). The press-replace process is systematically
presented in Figure 1. In Figure 1, a fixed displacement
of uy=0.1D is recommended, where D is the diameter of
the penetrating object. The initial position of a pre-
embedded 0.036m diameter cone is illustrated in Figure
1(a). The downward movement of the cone are
described by slices beneath the cone with thickness ts.
The process begins by prescribing a downward
displacement (uy) to simulate the pressing of the cone
(Figure 1(b)). At the end of this phase, the stresses that
develop in the soil elements of the deformed mesh will
resemble that caused by the pressing of the cone over
uy. Thereafter, the slice (ts = 0.1D) beneath the cone is
replaced by the cone material (Figure 1(c)). In practice,
Figures 1(b) and (c) represent the incremental
penetration of the cone. To increase the penetration
depth, this press and replace cycle is repeated till the
desired penetration depth is reached. Finally, Figure
1(d) represents the start of a new cycle.
The current CPT study using PRM was carried out
with PLAXIS 2D CONNECT Edition V21. A
penetrometer with cone diameter (D) of 0.036m and a
tip angle of 60° was modelled with an axisymmetric
setup. In this article, modeling details from multiple
sources (Sheng et al., 2014; Mahmoodzadeh and
Randolph, 2014; Mahmoodzadeh et al., 2014; Ceccato
et al., 2016; Orazalin, 2017) were replicated and results
were compared. Standardised modelling procedures
adopted in the PRM models and the typical mesh model
follow the details presented in Chia et al. (2022). Key
details of these literatures and soil model used are
presented in Table 1.
3 VALIDATION RESULTS
3.1 During CPT penetration

3.1.1 Comparison with Sheng et al. (2014)

Following the simulation example in Sheng et al.
(2014), a fully undrained and drained penetration were
associated with penetration rates (v) of 2 m/s and
0.000002 m/s. A validation study of cone resistance at
different rates were reported in Chia et al. (2022).

Figure 1. PRM process for cone penetration.

2 NUMGE 2023 - Proceedings
 The effects of partial drainage on the interpretation of pore pressure dissipation test data: a numerical study
Figure 2. Pore pressure development at 10H/D
Figure 3. Variation of Δumax with v/k of present study and
results from Sheng et al. (2014)
A monitoring location at depth 10H/D (from ground
surface) and radial distance R (from centre of cone) was
chosen, where, H and D are, respectively, the
penetration depth and cone diameter. At this location,
the pore pressure development during penetration was
monitored. Figure 2 illustrates the pore pressure
development for v (m/s) = 2, 0.2, 0.02, 0.002, 0.0002
and 0.00002. When the x-axis value is 0, the cone tip
coincides with the monitoring point.
The peak excess pore pressure was observed when
the cone tip was at a depth of 0.86D below the monitor-
ing point. At this instance, the cone shoulder position
(u2) coincides with the monitoring point. For an
undrained penetration, PRM estimates a maximum pore
pressure of 158kPa, a 2% difference from results
reported in Sheng et al. (2014).
Figure 3 shows the pore pressure backbone curve
obtained by plotting Δumax (from Figure 2) against
normalised penetration rate (v/k), where k denotes the
hydraulic conductivity of the soil. Figure 3 also
includes reported results from Sheng et al. (2014).
There is good results from Sheng et al. (2014). A good
agreement between the PRM results and those
published in the literature.
3 NUMGE 2023 - Proceedings
Figure 4. Radial profile of Δu2/σ’v0 at 6R (11cm) penetra-
tion depth from ground surface.
3.1.2 Comparison with Ceccato et al. (2016) and
Orazalin (2017)
Results from an identical cone penetration set-up in
normally consolidated kaolin clay were reported in
Ceccato et al. (2016) and Orazalin (2017). Both
publications adopted different numerical techniques and
modified cam-clay (MCC) soil model to model the
same penetration process. The numerical methods are
Material Point Method (MPM) and Lagrangian finite
element with automated remeshing, respectively. To
simulate partially drained behaviour, a constant
penetration rate v = 0.020 m/s was used, and hydraulic
conductivity k (ms-1) was varied. Subsequently, the
extent of consolidation due to drainage was quantified
using the normalised velocity term V=vD/cv (Randolph
and Hope, 2004), where cv is the consolidation
coefficient of the soil given in Equation (1), λ denotes
the virgin compression index, e0 is the initial void ratio,
σ’v0 is the effective vertical stress, and γw is the unit
weight of water.
𝑘∙(1+𝑒0 )
𝑐𝑣 = ∙ 𝜎′𝑣0 (1)
𝛾𝑤 ∙𝜆
The following V values were used: V=1200
(undrained respond), V=12 & 1.2 and V=0.012 (drained
response). Figure 4 plots the normalised excess pore
pressure (Δu2/σ’v0) radial profile of the cone at 6R depth
from ground surface. Included in Figure 4 are the
reported results (Orazalin, 2017) for V=502.1
(undrained response) and V=12. For points very close to
the cone shaft, the present PRM study predicts slightly
larger Δu2/σ’v0 values compared to Orazalin’s results.
Beyond the normalized distance of about 2R from the
cone shaft, the PRM results and Orazalin’s results show
good agreement.
 Finite element, finite difference, discrete element, material point and other methods

Figure 5 plots the variation of Δu2/Δu2undrained at the
cone shoulder with increasing dimensionless velcocity
V (Randolph and Hope, 2004), in which Δu2 is the
excess pore pressure at the cone shoulder measured at
varying penetration rates and Δu2undrained the excess pore
pressure from an undrained penetration. Included in
Figure 5 are the results taken from Ceccato et al. (2016)
and Orazalin (2017). It can be seen that the PRM results
show good agreement with those obtained using
different numerical techniques (Ceccato et al., 2016;
Orazalin, 2017).
A backbone curve describing the change in
Δu2/Δu2undrained with the normalised penetration rate V
was fitted following Equation (2) (DeJong and
Randolph, 2012; Ceccato et al., 2016), whereby V50
denotes the normalised velocity required to mobilize an
excess pore pressure that is 50% of the fully undrained
condition and c is the maximum rate of change of
Δu2/Δu2undrained with V. For this simulation V50=3 and
c=1.1.
∆𝑢2 1 0.35), the Δu2 value from the dissipation test is
=1− 𝑐 (2)
∆𝑢2𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 1+(
𝑉
) normalised by Δu2initial (obtained via root time method)
𝑉50
to 8, with the excess pore pressure (Δu2) showing a
slight increase initially (at very small values of the
normalized time) before decreasing monotonically with
time. Non-standard decay curves were observed and
adjusted via the root time method (Taylor, 1948). A
detailed execution of this method has been explained in
Mahmoodzadeh and Randolph (2014). Dissipation
results from the undrained penetration case were
processed using the theoretical solution of Equation (3)
(Teh and Houlsby, 1991) to obtain a ch value of 5.2 x
10-7 m2s-1. Thereafter, the modified time factor T* (Teh
and Houlsby, 1991) corresponding to t(s) were
calculated using Equation (4), where ch denotes the
coefficient of consolidation calculated from dissipation
test, and Ir is the rigidity index of the soil.
𝑐ℎ 𝑡50
𝑑2 √𝐼𝑟
= 0.06125 (3)
𝑐ℎ 𝑡
𝑇∗ = (4)
𝑑2 √𝐼𝑟
For each penetration rate (V=78.5, 11.8, 3.5, 1.2 and
and plotted against T*, as shown in Figures 6-8 for T*
corresponding to V=78.5, 3.5 and 0.35. Included in
Figures 6 to 8 are results reported from Mahmoodzadeh
et al. (2014). The minor differences observed might be
attributed to different cone diameter (D) used in the
present PRM study and Mahmoozadeh et al. (2014),
although this difference has, in principle, been
accounted for through the dimensional velocity V and
modified time factor T*.

Figure 5. Variation of normalised excess pore pressure

(Δu2/Δu2undrained) with V.

3.2 During dissipation tests

Figure 6. Normalised excess pore pressure decay curve
PRM analyses were also performed to simulate the with T*, V=78.5 (undrained)
centrifuge CPT experiments reported in
Mahmoodzadeh and Randolph (2014) and
Mahmoodzadeh et al. (2014). The penetrations were
conducted at corresponding dimensionless velocity V
values of 78.5 (undrained), 11.8, 3.5, 1.2 and 0.35. The
cone was held stationary upon penetration to a depth of
16H/D, and the excess pore pressures that developed
were allowed to dissipate. The pore pressure dissipation
response from the PRM simulations were plotted and
compared with the results reported in Mahmoodzadeh
and Randolph (2014). The dissipation curves generally
exhibit the reverse S-shaped profile shown on Figures 6 Figure 7. Normalised excess pore pressure decay curve
with T*, V=3.5 (Partially drained)

4 NUMGE 2023 - Proceedings

 The effects of partial drainage on the interpretation of pore pressure dissipation test data: a numerical study
Figure 8. Normalised excess pore pressure decay curve
with T*, V=0.35 (drained)
Overall, there is good agreement between the
dissipation curves obtained numerically in this study
and the centrifuge results reported by Mahmoodzadeh
et al. (2014). In this respect, PRM is shown to be a
viable method to simulate the cone penetration process
at different rates as well as the excess pore pressure
response during the subsequent dissipation test.
4 INTERPRETATION OF DISSIPATION
TEST DATA FOLLOWING PARTIALLY
DRAINED PENETRATIONS
By processing the dissipation results from an undrained
penetration using the theoretical solution of Teh and
Hously (1991), a reasonable estimate of the ch value can
be made. Where partial consolidation occurs during
penetration, as a result of different drainage scenarios,
it is difficult to accurately obtain a unique solution. This
is because the extent of drainage can vary depending on
the penetration rate and the consolidation properties of
the soil. However, a framework accounting for
interpretation errors in ch value caused by partially
drained penetrations can be introduced. This is done by
first understanding the relationship between t50 and
dimensionless velocity (V).
Figure 9: Normalised excess pore pressure decay with
time.
5 NUMGE 2023 - Proceedings
The experimental results of Mahmoodzadeh et al.
(2014) show that dissipation tests conducted following
penetration at different rates would result in a rightward
shift of the dissipation curve. This observation is
illustrated in Figure 9, which shows the decay behaviour
of excess pore pressure generated from different rates of
penetration. It is clearly seen that the t50 value (from the
dissipation test) increases as the rate of penetration
decreases. Consequently, the variation of t50 (s) caused
by different penetration rates would result in multiple
interpretations of the ch value if the conventional ch
interpretation (Teh and Houlsby, 1991) is applied
Figure 10: Variation of t50/t50,undrained with V/V50 with pub-
lished literatures.
By processing the experimental dissipation data from
Mahmoodzadeh et al. (2014), a relationship between t50
and V is presented in Figure 10, where t50 is normalised
by t50,undrained and V by V50 (from Equation (2)). The term
t50,undrained denotes the time taken for 50% excess pore
pressure dissipation following an undrained
penetration. For this illustration, V50 = 4.0. Figure 10
plots the variation of normalised time (t50/t50,undrained)
with normalised velocity, V/V50. An “inverse-S’ trend
was observed. Also included in Figure 10 are the
processed dissipation results from other published
sources (Schneider et al., 2007; Ceccato and Simonini,
2017).
The processed data in Figure 10 supports the trend
observed between t50/t50,undrained and V/V50. The ratio
t50/t50,undrained remains relatively constant (with slight
variation) as the penetration process approaches the
drained condition. For simplicity, it is assumed that
t50/t50,undrained remains constant.
The trend presented in Figure 10 can be
approximated by the function presented in Equation (5),
whereby t50, limiting is the limiting value that t50
approaches as the penetration rate decreases, and w and
m are fitting constants.
 Finite element, finite difference, discrete element, material point and other methods
𝑡
( 50,𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 )−1
𝑡50 𝑡50,𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑
𝑡50,𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑
= (1 + 1+𝑤∙(𝑉⁄𝑉50 )
𝑚 ) (5)
According to the results plotted in Figure 10, the
approximate values of t50,limiting/t50,undrained, w and m are
2.6, 1.2 and 1.1 respectively. Equation (5) can be used
to estimate t50,undrained from t50 when the fitted constatnts
are known. A limitation of Equation (5) is that it cannot
be applied readily to estimate ch. A direct relationship
between ch with t50 needs to be established in Equation
(5). This will be presented and discussed in an
upcoming publication currently under preparation.
5 CONCLUSION
This article adopts a simplified approach, the Press-
Replace Method (PRM), to model the Cone Penetratiton
Test (CPT). PRM is readily implemented using a small
strain finite element program. In this study, PRM was
adopted to simulate cone penetration in which there is
consolidation concurrently taking place. This is done by
applying different rates of cone penetrations. This
paper compares the excess pore pressure response for 4
examples taken from the published literature.
First, consolidation analyses were carried out and the
effects of partial drainage (during penetration) studied
and validated. Using published results from Sheng et
al. (2014), Orazalin (2017), Ceccato et al. (2016), the
PRM pore pressure predictions were validated using
radial profiles and backbone curves relating the excess
pore pressure behaviour with normalised velocity. Next,
as part of this validation study, a dissipation test using
the centrifuge setup reported by Mahmoodzadeh et al.
(2014) and Mahmoodzadeh and Randolph (2014) was
simulated using PRM. The predicted profiles of pore
pressure decay with T* compare well with those
reported in the published literature.
As an extension to this study, the effects of partially
drained penetrations on the subsequent disspation tests
and ch interpretation errors were highlighted and
discussed. A relationship between t50 and V was
established and illustrated graphically.
6 REFERENCES
Andersen, K. H., Andresen, L., Jostad, H. P., & Clukey, E. C.
(2004, January). Effect of skirt-tip geometry on set-up
outside suction anchors in soft clay. In International
Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic
Engineering (Vol. 37432, pp. 1035-1044).
6 NUMGE 2023 - Proceedings
Ceccato, F., Beuth, L., & Simonini, P. (2016). Analysis of
piezocone penetration under different drainage conditions
with the two-phase material point method. Journal of
Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental
Engineering, 142(12), 04016066.
Ceccato, F., & Simonini, P. (2017). Numerical study of
partially drained penetration and pore pressure dissipation
in piezocone test. Acta Geotechnica, 12(1), 195-209.
Chai, J., Sheng, D., Carter, J. P., & Zhu, H. (2012).
Coefficient of consolidation from non-standard piezocone
dissipation curves. Computers and Geotechnics, 41, 13-
22.
Chia, R. W. L., Wang, Z. Z., & Goh, S. H. (2022). Validating
cone penetration test in partially drained conditions using
a simplified numerical modelling method. In Cone
Penetration Testing 2022 (pp. 317-324). CRC Press.
Engin, H. K., Brinkgreve, R. B. J., & Van Tol, A. F. (2015).
Simplified numerical modelling of pile penetration–the
press‐replace technique. International Journal for
Numerical and Analytical Methods in
Geomechanics, 39(15), 1713-1734.
Lim, Y. X., Tan, S. A., & Phoon, K. K. (2018). Application
of press-replace method to simulate undrained cone
penetration. International Journal of
Geomechanics, 18(7), 04018066.
Mahmoodzadeh, H., & Randolph, M. F. (2014). Penetrometer
testing: effect of partial consolidation on subsequent
dissipation response. Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering, 140(6), 04014022.
Mahmoodzadeh, H., Randolph, M. F., & Wang, D. (2014).
Numerical simulation of piezocone dissipation test in
clays. Géotechnique, 64(8), 657-666.
Orazalin, Z. Y. (2017). Analysis of large deformation
offshore geotechnical problems in soft clay (Doctoral
dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Paniagua, P., Nordal, S., & Engin, H. K. (2014). Back
calculation of CPT tests in silt by the Press-Replace
technique.
Randolph, M., & Hope, S. (2004). Effect of cone velocity on
cone resistance and excess pore pressures. Proc. 1st Int.
Symp. on Engineering Practice and Performance of Soft
Deposits, Osaka, 147–152.
Robertson, P. K., & Cabal, K. L. (2015). Guide to cone
penetration testing for geotechnical engineering. Gregg
Drilling & Testing, Inc, 6.
Schneider, J. A., Lehane, B. M., & Schnaid, F. (2007).
Velocity effects on piezocone measurements in normally
and over consolidated clays. International Journal of
Physical Modelling in Geotechnics, 7(2), 23-34.
Sheng, D., Kelly, R., Pineda, J., & Bates, L. (2014).
Numerical study of rate effects in cone penetration test.
In 3rd international symposium on cone penetration
testing (pp. 419-428).
Teh, C. I., & Houlsby, G. T. (1991). An analytical study of
the cone penetration test in clay. Geotechnique, 41(1), 17-
34.
Wang, Z. Z., & Goh, S. H. (2018). Spudcan installation and
post installation behaviour in soft clay: The press-replace
method. In Numerical Methods in Geotechnical
Engineering IX (pp. 1503-1510). CRC Press