Bearing Capacity - Shear Wave Velocity Correlation

[fbellini]

Has anyone determined a correlation between shear wave velocity and bearing capacity for granular soils (quantitative or at least semi-quantitative).

Published?

Frank Bellini
Areva
Marlboro, MA

 

[Dirtguy4587]

What type of shear wave velocity testing did you do. There are a number of correlations using Seismic CPT to determine bearing capacity and foundation response (both shallow and deep foundations).

 

[BigH]

First off, unless your granular soil is so loose, bearing capacity is almost, if ever, the controlling factor in determining allowable bearing pressures. It is the settlement that controls. You can use the shear wave velocity to get G - convert G to E through the standard elastic conversions - you may have to assume poisson's ratio of 0.3 or 0.35 as you wish. You can then use the E value to estimate settlements in order to arrive at an allowable bearing pressure. If you think that you need to obtain the bearing capacity - you could, I suppose, use variously published correlations to get "N" or "qc". - but all of this is for gaining an appreciation as to the potential magnitudes - for me it is a "green light"/"red light" approach.