CPT Applications Foundations

Peter K. Robertson
CPT in Geotechnical Practice

Santiago, Chile
July, 2014
Robertson, 2013

Deep Foundations

Robertson, 2013

Deep Foundations
Pile axial capacity
earliest application of CPT data

Complicated by large variety of pile types and

installations procedures as well as soil type

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Axial Capacity
Capacity controlled by details of installation
Few design methods account for installation
Most design techniques based on empirical
methods
CPT is essentially a model pile

Theoretical work supports most empirical

methods
Axial capacity can be difficult to define
many methods to define Qult

Example axial capacity?

Various capacity criteria for drilled shaft (bored) pile Atlanta (After Mayne, 2009)

Robertson, 2013

Axial Capacity?

45m driven steel pipe in soft clay

16m & 20m driven steel pipe in stiff clay

Capacity will change with time usually increase

After Fellenius, 2012

Robertson, 2013

Axial Capacity
P

Qs = shaft resistance

Qult = Qs + Qb
Qs = shaft resistance = fpAs
Qb = base resistance = qpAp
fp & qp unit shaft & base resistance

Qb = base resistance

Robertson, 2013

CPT for Geotechnical Design

CPT DATA
DIRECT
Empirical
Based on past foundation
performance
Less general

INDIRECT

Less empirical
Soil parameters
More general
Often more difficult

Robertson, 2013

Indirect Approach
Psuedo-theoretical methods
Soil parameters from CPT
Sand friction angle
Clays undrained shear strength

Empirical methods
Unit side friction fp = v
Unit end bearing qp = Ntb

No account for method of pile installation

Robertson, 2013

CPT Direct methods

Alpha methods
LCPC-82 (Bustamante and Gianeselli, 1982)
Wide range of pile types

EF-97 (Eslami & Fellenius, 1997)

Mostly driven steel piles

Offshore piles (driven steel piles)

Fugro-05 (Kolk et al., 2005)

IPC-05 (Sands - Jardine et al., 2005)
NGI-05 (Clausen et al., 2005)
UAW-05 (Lehane et al., 2005)

(good summary in Schneider et al., ASCE 2008)

Robertson, 2013

CPT Direct Method - LCPC

Based on over 200 full scale pile load tests
- after Bustamante and Gianeselli, 1982

Wide range of pile types and soil conditions

Uses only CPT penetration resistance, qc
Accounts for different pile types/installation
methods
Best when calibrated against pile load test
results
aid in correct selection of pile/installation category

Robertson, 2013

LCPC CPT Method

Published evaluations
Briaud & Tucker (1988)
78 pile load test results

Robertson et al. (1988)

8 pile load test results

Tand & Funegard (1989)

13 pile load test results
plus several more recent publications

LCPC CPT-method gave the best results in all studies

Robertson, 2013

Scale effect for unit end resistance

Pile or CPT

Zone of influence

Robertson, 2013

LCPC Method
after Bustamante and Gianeselli, 1982

Unit base resistance, qp

qp = qca kc
where:
qca = equivalent CPT tip resistance at level
of pile tip
kc = empirical bearing capacity factor

Robertson, 2013

Calculation of equivalent average cone resistance

Average cone resistance (qca)
calculated over a distance of 3
pile diameters (3D) - 1.5D
above & 1.5D below.
High and low points (<0.7qca
and >1.3qca) removed above
High points (>1.3qca)
removed below

after Bustamante and Gianeselli, 1982

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LCPC Pile Types

6 pile types from low displacement to very high displacement piles

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Soil Behaviour Type (SBT) Chart

(qt/pa)

1000

E,G &H

100

LCPC Nature of Soil

zones on CPT-SBT
chart
Soft clay
A
Compact clay
B
Stiff clay
D
Loose sand/silt
C
Compact sand/gravel
F
Very compact sand/gravel H
Chalk
E&G

10

A
1
= 100 (fs/qt)
Note: 1 tsf ~ 0.1 MPa

Robertson, 2013

Bearing Capacity Factors, kc

Robertson, 2013

ab

After Bustamante and Gianeselli, 1982

Nature of soil

qc (MPa)

Group I

Group II

Soft clay and mud

<1

0.4

0.5

Moderately compact clay

1 to 5

0.35

0.45

Silt and loose sand

0.4

0.5

Compact to stiff clay and compact silt

>5

0.45

0.55

Soft chalk

0.2

0.3

Moderately compact sand and gravel

5 to 12

0.4

0.5

Weathered to fragmented chalk

0.2

0.4

Compact to very compact sand and gravel

> 12

0.3

0.4

Group I: (Bored piles) plain bored piles, mud bored piles, micro piles (grouted under low pressure), cased bored
piles, hollow auger bored piles, piers, barrettes. i.e. low displacement piles
Group II: (Driven Piles) cast screwed piles, driven pre-cast piles, pre-stressed tubular piles, driven cast piles, jacked
metal piles, micropiles (small diameter piles grouted under high pressure with diameter <250mm), driven grouted piles
(low pressure grouting), driven metal piles, driven rammed piles, jacket concrete piles, high pressure grouted piles of
large diameter , i.e. high displacement piles

Robertson, 2013

LCPC Method
Unit shaft resistance, fp
fp = qc/
where:
qc = CPT tip resistance
= empirical friction coefficient
Note: fp held to maximum values

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Shaft resistance coefficient, s

A
B

30

30

C
D
E
F
G
H

After Bustamante and Gianeselli, 1982

Unit shaft resistance

Jamiolkowski 2003 concrete bored piles

E&F-97
LCPC

After Fellenius, 2012

LCPC - CLAY

LCPC

E&F-97 similar to LCPC but

uses effective cone resistance,
qE = qt u2
In sands qe ~ qt

After Mayne,2007

PILE Q

CPT qc

DEPTH
z

DEPTH
z

QULT

Qs

Qb

Example pile capacity profile from CPT

Robertson, 2013

Factor of Safety (FS) - Piles

Depends on many factors
Reliability and sufficiency of field data
Confidence in method
Previous experience with similar piles in similar
soils
Pile load test results are available

Generally FS is around 2.0

LCPC suggest
2.0 for Qs
3.0 for Qb

(shaft resistance mobilized with small displacement)

(base resistance mobilized with large displacement)

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Load Settlement Response

Single Pile
Controlled by combined behavior of Qs and Qb
Side resistance mobilized at small movement
(0.5% of D or 5 to 10mm)
Base resistance mobilized at large movement
(10 to 20% of D depending on pile type and
ground)

Robertson, 2013

Load Settlement Response

Friction Pile (Qs >> Qb)
Plunging failure at about 0.5% of diameter

End Bearing Pile (Qb >> Qs)

No clear failure until very large settlements
10 to 20% of diameter (D) to failure
Settlement criteria usually controls

Robertson, 2013

Single Pile
Load Settlement Response
1.0

D
Qs = Shaft Resistance

Qs
Qsf

SHAFT

~ 0.5%
S/Ds
(5mm ~ 10mm)

Qb = Base Resistance

1.0
Ds = Diameter of Shaft
Db = Diameter of Base

Qb
Qbf
BASE
10%
S/Db

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Friction Pile (Qs >> Qb)

Qs

E = PL/AE

Total

P
Qs

Shaft

Qb

PWORKING

Qb Base

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End Bearing Pile (Qb >> Qs)

E = PL/AE

Total

Qs

P
Qb Base

Qb
PWORKING

Qs Shaft
% of Qs and Qb change with P

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Amherst Site

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Amherst
Pile Test

0.95m dia. drilled

shaft,
14.3m long
1200kN capacity

Robertson, 2013

Amherst
Pile Test
Measured for 14.3m long pile

0.95m dia.
drilled shaft,
14.3m long

Robertson, 2013

Load-settlement elastic solution

Poulos and Davis, 1990 (see Mayne, 2000)
Soil modulus either constant or linearly
increasing with depth
Axial pile settlement, s (both shaft and base)
s = Q Ip / Esl Dp
where:

Esl = Eo (1 Q/Qult)0.3)

and

Eo = 2.5 Go and Go =r Vs2

Robertson, 2013

Case History - Drilled Shaft

Opelika NGES, Alabama
(Brown, ASCE JGGE, Dec. 2002)

Eight Drilled Shafts:

d = 3 feet
L = 36 feet
Construction Methods
Dry (Cased)
Bentonite
Dry Polymer Slurry
Liquid Polymer Slurry
After Mayne, 2000

SCPT at Opelika NGES, Alabama

Piedmont Residual fine sandy silts
qt (MPa)

Depth BGS (m)

fs (kPa)
6

100

200

300

100

Vs (m/s)
0

-100
0

10

10

10

12

12

12

After Mayne, 2000

u2 (kPa)
200

200

uo

10

12

SCPTu
SDMT
Crosshole
SASW

400

Axial Drilled Shaft Load Test Opelika, AL

Q (total)

Axial Load, Q (MN)

0

Drilled
Shaft 01
(cased)

Top Deflection (mm)

d = 0.91 m
L = 11.0 m

10

15
Qtotal = Qs + Qb

20

Pred. Qs

Q shaft

Pred. Qb
Meas. Total

25

Meas. Shaft
Meas. Base

30

Q base
After Mayne, 2000

Robertson, 2013

Summary
CPT provides reliable profiles of ground conditions

Fast
Cost effective
Continuous
Reliable

LCPC CPT method accounts for method of

installation
Good track record
Simple

Best when calibrated against pile load test results

CPeT-IT incorporates LCPC and simple load-settlement
method

Robertson, 2013

Bearing capacity Shallow footing

CPT Direct method
Coarse-grained soils (sands):
Ultimate bearing capacity,

qult = K qc(av)

where:
qc(av) = average CPT below depth of footing, z = B

typically take K = 0.16

(Depends on B/D, footing shape and soil density)

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Bearing Capacity on Sands - CPT

DEEP

SHALLOW

Eslaamizaad and Robertson (1996)

qult = K qc

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Bearing Capacity
Fine-grained soils (clays, etc.):
Ultimate bearing capacity, qult = Ksuqc(av)
where:
qc(av) = average CPT below depth of footing, z = B
typically take Ksu = 0.30
(Depends on B/D, footing shape, OCR, and sensitivity)

Robertson, 2013

Youngs Modulus E
Based on extension of the
relationship between CPT
and Vs for young
uncemented coarsegrained soils
E = 2.5 G0 = 2.5 r (Vs)2
Eav = aE (qt - svo) ~ aE qc
aE = 0.015 [10 (0.55Ic + 1.68)]
2 < aE < 20
E/qc = 0.047[1-(q/qult)0.3]10(0.55Ic+1.68)
Robertson, 2009
Robertson, 2013

Youngs Modulus E

Uziell & Mayne, 2013

Robertson, 2013

Worked
Examples
CPeT-IT
(see petit)
http://www.geologismiki.gr/
John Th. Ioannides

Robertson, 2013

Webinars
Recordings of previous webinars are available on
YouTube: search for CPT Robertson or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alrzeelWpZc

Basic of
Foundation
Design
Bengt Fellenius (2012)
Download FREE copy from:
www.Fellenius.net
Good section on Pile design