Consolidation After Undrained Piezocone Penetration. I: Prediction

Abstract

Piezocone measurements during steady cone penetration provide valuable soil‐profiling and soil‐identification data. The potential of the piezocone as a soil‐exploration tool can be significantly enahnced if the pore‐pressure decay that takes place after interrupting penetration can be interpreted to estimate the consolidation and/or permeability of the soil. This paper provides the necessary theoretical background to develop a rational interpretation method and presents linear consolidation solutions to be used in analyzing dissipation data in clays. Results show the two‐dimensional aspects of the problem and evaluate the effects of clay anisotropy, cone angle, porous sensing element location, linear coupling, mesh size, and resolution as well as sensitivity of predictions to soil variability and measurement errors.