See attached image, can i ignore the 2nd effective circle and draw a steeper failure envelope connecting the 1st and 3rd effective circles (blue)? What are the reasons of when that can be done or not allowed or not recommended?
Let's say I have sinkholes at 50' and I want to build lightly-loaded buildings that the loads will not be anywhere near the sinkholes. Minimal grade changes. Clayey soils over limestone bedrock. No sign of sinkhole in the neighborhood but there are reported depressions in greater nearby areas...
Liquid limit tests are required to be performed before and after oven-dried for organic soils; however, ASTM 4318 (Atterberg Limits) does not specify the temperature to dry the soils for the after-oven-dried liquid limit test on organic soils? Is it the typical 110±5 Celsius (to burn off water...
In Slide2, is it realistic if the concrete piles are modeled with high cohesion (half of unconfined compressive strength) and high phi? I feel like that will completely ignore the possibility that the failure surface can slice through the concrete piles and render the analysis unrealistic
ASCE 7-22 states "Classes A and B shall not be assigned to a site if there is more than 10 feet of soil between the rock surface and the bottom of the spread footing or mat foundation." If my measured shear wave velocity is greater than 3000 ft/s (minimum requirement for Class B) but only half...
How come some drillers avoid rock coring? Is it because rock coring requires experienced drillers? If yes, how so, what are the disadvantages in rock coring comparing to soil drilling from the driller's point of view? Or is it because they're afraid of losing expensive equipment down the hole...
Florida passed a new law last year requiring condos to have milestone structural inspections. Any of you guys performing these inspections? How often do the buildings require a Phase 2 inspection? What types of destructive/nondestructive/lab testing do you typically do for a Phase 2 Milestone...
How do you guys use to quantify inclusions such as organics (roots, leaves, branches), debris (brick, concrete, asphalt, metal, trash, etc.)? FHWA guidelines use "with," which does not quantify to paint a picture of the amount of inclusions encountered
I saw a paper to estimate void ratio of clay based on moisture content but couldn't find it. Has anyone seen or have anything similar that you can share?
When performing soil infiltration test in clayey soils, the typical test duration is much longer and the rate is much slower than they are for sandy texture soils. But what is the point of continuing the test if the infiltration rate is much slower than the minimum required rate for infiltration...
If a SPT soil sample has a piece of 3/4 gravel and the sample volume is small, do you include the gravel in the Particle Size Analysis? If it is included, its weight may be too dominant, throw off the curve, and the soil type result may not be representative. What would you recommend to do in...
The highest influence factor for a load under embankment is only 0.5. So let's say at depth z=1 foot below the bottom of the embankment at its crest, the load is reduced by 50%! That doesn't seem right to me. For comparison, the influence factor is 0.9 within approx. 0.3B below a footing. See...
See attached photo. Phi effective is 39 degrees. The result seems questionable because it is very high for this soil, which is silty sand, at 8ft depth, and has a N-value of 4. Based on the lab report, where do you think the lab procedure went wrong?
See attached photo. To avoid these surficial failure surface, I set the minimum height of surface to 10 feet but I'm afraid that will ignore the real failure surfaces. What do you do to avoid these surficial surfaces?
If I have a reinforced modular block wall, with up to 30 feet of new fill behind it and the subgrade consist of loose silty sand, how do I calculate the settlement of the wall system (including the reinforced zone)? The wall system would look like an up-side-down trapezoid but one of the short...
I was reading a powerpoint presentation about site recon and it mention lookout for "concentration of cedar trees on a site with few other trees." Of course, i dont know who the presenter is so i cant ask him. Does anyone happen to know what does that indicate? I'm guessing it has something to...
Hi,
If a triaxial shear test is required to obtain friction angle of retaining wall backfill soil, what confining pressures would you apply? Does it matter if I apply anything other than the typical 5, 10, 15 psi? Can I have just 2 circles instead of the typical 3? Is the test result...
