Impact of the moisture content in medium sands on CPTU test results

Abstract

Soils occurring in the soil “active zone” are in contact with the surface and are directly influenced by external factors (mainly climatic changes) that cause variation in their parameters over time. Dynamic and uncontrolled changes of soil properties e.g. due to rainfall and evapotranspiration processes may affect field test results leading to the misinterpretation of the obtained data. This paper presents investigations on the influence of moisture content changes in sandy soils on CPTU results. For this purpose, a field ground model has been constructed and five CPTU tests with a different moisture content of soil were carried out. During the investigations, the tip resistance ( q c ), friction on sleeve ( f s ), and pore water pressure ( u 2 ) were measured. Moreover, a TDR probe was applied to determine the distribution of the moisture content in the studied soil columns. Differences between CPT results obtained in saturated and unsaturated soils have been shown. Furthermore, a simple equation to correct the tip resistance value due to the impact of the degree of saturation has been proposed.