The use of pressuremeters in the marine environment

Abstract

The potential of pressuremeters for determining the engineering properties of the ground is becoming more recognised. The current generation of high resolution devices provide measurements of ground stiffness and the degradation of stiffness with strain to an extraordinary level of precision and repeatability. The need for such data in off-shore installation design has resulted in a greater willingness to deploy pressuremeters in the marine environment. There are three ways of getting pressuremeters into the ground, self-boring, pre-boring or pushing. Each approach results in a different arrangement of stress in the surrounding material at the time the cavity expansion phase of the test is initiated. This paper reviews the advantages and disadvantages of each method and how the test should be interpreted to take account of the contribution of the insertion method. A companion paper ref [6] gives examples from the Padma River Multi-Purpose Bridge development in Bangladesh where all three methods for placing pressuremeters have been used.