A thesis submitted in partial: fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1980

Taipei silt formation contains abundant thin layers of mica and sea shells. These cause serious disturbance during sampling and thinning. The in-situ instrument is needed to measure the soil properties. Although the pressuremeter is a popular in-situ instrument in France and Japan recently, it is still a new type of in-situ test instrument to engineers in Taiwan. They do not have much confidence to use the pressuremeter test results to a foundation design. In this investigation, 35 pressuremeter tests and standard penetration tests have been carried out at two sites in Taipei, The unconfined compression tests and unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests have been performed on the undisturbed samples which are taken from the same depths of pressuremeter tests. The procedure for drilling a borehole to run a pressuremeter test influences the results of pressuremeter parameters. The method of providing an exact hole by means of a thin walled tube is considered to be a feasible arid more adequate one. The results of pressuremeter tests have been compared with that of unconfined compression tests and unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests. Some correlation between them have been found from this comparision. This correlation may be helpful to engineers in designing a foundation by using the empirical formulas proposed by MENARD. The undrained shear strength derived from the pressuremeter test is 3 to 5 times higher than that obtained from the UC or UU test. It is found that the coefficient of earth pressure at rest is equal to about 0.5 and the creep pressure is close to the maximum consolidation pressure.