Cone and ball penetration tests in Ottawa's sensitive marine clays

N. Athir, R. Hache, M. Fall

In the proceedings of: GeoMontréal 2013: 66th Canadian Geotechnical Conference; 11th joint with IAH-CNC

Session: Engineering Geology II

ABSTRACT: The soundings of cone penetration test in sensitive marine clays in Ottawa have been problematic. Negative tip resistance and sleeve friction have been recorded. Also, underestimation and overestimation of the undrained shear strength of the sensitive marine clays have been noted. Temperature effect was suspected to be the cause for negative soundings drift and erroneous undrained shear strength estimations especially in radical temperature change countries such as Canada. Therefore, this research was started. Three types of penetrometer tips were used in The Canadian Geotechnical Research Site No. 1 located in Ottawa which are 36 mm cone, 40 mm ball, and 113 mm ball. Nilcon Field Vane tests were also carried out at the site to calibrate the undrained shear strength estimations from the penetrometer soundings. In addition, laboratory testing on the penetrometer equipment was performed to evaluate potential temperature effects on the soundings.

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Cite this article:
N. Athir; R. Hache; M. Fall (2013) Cone and ball penetration tests in Ottawa's sensitive marine clays in GEO2013. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{GeoMon2013Paper519,author = N. Athir; R. Hache; M. Fall,title = Cone and ball penetration tests in Ottawa's sensitive marine clays,year = 2013}