When calculating foundation settlement in moist (unsaturated) clay, do DMT methods (eg. Schmertmann, 1986) consider the effects of possible future saturation?
MMmm, I wonder how that would be possible.
The DMT measures the expansion of a lateral membrane, with the conditions present at the time the measurements have been taken.
In unsaturated OC clays it is a known fact that DMT values of the edometric modulus are far larger than the results of edometric modules from lab tests.
But again, lab tests are subject to disturbance plus saturation, sometimes the sample is just partially saturated. And I observed that lab tests can be overconservative as to the amount of settlements measured by the results of oedometric tests.
There have been several instances where the settlements measured by the DMT have matched the observations better than those calulated by lab tests odemetric moduli.
