Evaluation of some soil characteristics from field SPT values using random number generation technique

Abstract

Several engineering attributes, such as soil strength and deformability, are very significant and are regarded as the basis of any sort of foundation design. In determining the vibration extent depending on the used soil numerical models, soil characteristics represented by the shear wave velocity, cohesion, angle of internal friction and Poisson’s ratio are crucial. Different kinds of parameters are identified in various used manuals in numerical modelling. The outputs of these numerical programs are commonly dependent on the input parameters. Thus, in the analysis of any geotechnical problem, the correct selection of rigorous values of the engineering properties of the soil is extremely serious. In this study, a set of field data for Standard Penetration Test (SPT) values has been collected from more than twenty different places in Kirkuk city. In addition, using the random number generation method, several empirical relationships of various soil properties have been advanced in terms of the spectrum of the collected SPT values. The functional benefit of the relationships developed can be used to validate the observed experimental geotechnical data integrated in the architecture of the different civil engineering ventures. As a result, for the SPT-N values ranged from 4 to 44, the predicted soil cohesion and angle of internal of friction increased from 17 kPa to 281 kPa and 4° to 38° respectively. As an overall evaluation, the shear wave velocity ranged from 72 (m/s) to 367 (m/s) whereas the field and predicted UCS varied from 60 kPa to 320 kPa and 54 kPa to 400 kPa respectively.