Determination of Prestress in Cohesive Soils Using AE

Abstract

In an attempt to develop an acoustic emission (AE) field procedure to directly determine preconsolidation pressures, laboratory feasibility tests on granular soils (published earlier as a companion paper; Ref. 7) and on cohesive soils (this study) have been conducted. Consolidation test specimens were prepared, stressed to known values and then unloaded. Upon restressing, acoustic emission and deformation data were taken for use in estimating the previously applied stress level, i.e., the preconsolidation pressure. Six soils, each at three different water contents were tested, and all 18 were evaluated at four different stress levels, i.e., 72 tests were performed. It was found that the average error between the known and estimated values of preconsolidation pressures Varied from