Abstract
The predominantly hilly terrain of Penang Island combined with average maximum daily temperatures ranging between 27-35oC and peak rainfall as high as 647 cm makes the overall area potentially susceptible to landslips. Over the recent past construction industry has shown a rapid growth mainly due to increase in the inflow of international tourists and other economic reasons. Eventually, the magnitude of disaster associated with landslides has also increased and that is one of the major concerns of engineering geologists and geotechnical engineers. With this background this paper attempts to characterize the largely granitic residual soils of Penang Island by discussing the nature, structural features, engineering behavior and field properties of soil samples extracted from 8 sites. These sites are distinctly chosen from a database of 31 sites for they are located over different prime geological formations. The mean values of various design properties at different depths are calculated and plotted to identify the property trend with depth and important behavioral features relevant to landslides are discussed. Similarly, compression index values are plotted against initial void ratio and liquid limit separately and resulting correlations are compared with the established ones. Correlations given by Azzous are found to hold good. Lastly, in the light of the lessons learnt from the past landslides and the current characterization results some improvements regarding slope instability problem are discussed.
Highlights
The authors have no hesitation in accepting that this work can only serve as a small entity in thisThe in situ behavior of soils is complex because it whole enterprising task.is heavily dependent on numerous factors
It is understood that geotechnical problems with socio-economic impacts like landslides can only be addressed within a framework that accounts for behavioral features in natural soils
Research is actively taking place in many countries, each focusing on natural deposits of local importance, and a unified framework that can account for all important effects is still being developed [1]
Summary
The authors have no hesitation in accepting that this work can only serve as a small entity in this. The development of this unified framework requires a huge and joint effort from as many sources as possible taking underway the best of their academic and technical skills and using best possible instruments With this idea in the backdrop this paper attempts to summarize the index, strength, compressibility and field properties of tropical residual soils of Penang and discusses important correlations and facts that emerged thereof. The data collected from each group of sites is further divided into three subgroups each representing a distinct nature of soil (sandy, silty and clayey) found over that formation.
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