Japanese Geotechnical Society Special Publication The 15th Asian Regional Conference on

Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

Effective utilization of dynamic penetrometer in determining the soil resistance of the reconstituted
sand bed

Shubham Srivastava i), Srinivasan V ii) and Ghosh P iii)

i) Project Associate, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India.
ii) Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India.
iii) Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India.

ABSTRACT

The present study incorporates the scale down model of Jornada dynamic penetrometer to determine the uniformity
of the soil profile and also results in finding out the resistance offered by the soil mass. Four different sand samples
of uniform gradation have been collected from various parts of India. The sand samples have been reconstituted
using the conventional rainfall pouring technique through air pluviation. The samples have been prepared at different
heights of fall and their uniformity has been quantified using the dynamic penetrometer. The soil resistance has been
measured at various locations across the soil sample and the results are presented.

Keywords: penetrometer, relative density, soil resistance, uniformity, height of fall.

1 INTRODUCTION characterization. In the present investigation, the air

It has been found in the recent past, that the natural
calamities have resulted in inducting more physical
modelling of geotechnical problems in order to depict
the real time field situations. Hence, quite often, many
centrifuge and large scale model testing of various
geotechnical problems can be noticed. This further
invokes the necessity of preparing and reconstituting
typical soil profile for every given test to be carried out
in a series of experiments. Because of comparatively
low stress levels in the calibration chamber of the
centrifuge modelling as well the model scale testing,
small variations in the preparation of soil sample may
lead to misleading results in predicting the actual
phenomenon. Hence, it is highly mandated to maintain
the uniformity across the soil deposit during any
physical modelling. In general, the reconstitution of dry
sand bed involves three major factors such as height of
fall, depositional intensity and uniformity of the bed
(Rad and Tumay 1987, Vaid and Negussey 1984, 1988).
Further, it has been observed that the pluviation (air,
water or vacuum) technique yields better results in
obtaining a sand bed with wide range (very loose to
highly dense) of densities coupled with uniform void
ratio across the specimen (Lagioia et al. 2006). The
present work focuses more on examining the spatial
variability of the sand bed using a cost effective
instrument in order to ascertain the uniformity as well
as the soil resistance to correlate with the strength
pluviation mechanism using conventional rainfall
pouring technique has been explored to prepare the
sand bed. Four different Indian sands have been
considered, out of which two have been collected from
the river beds and the rest two are processed as per IS
650:1991.
2 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Literature reveals that several methods have been
evolved over time in order to determine the uniformity
of the sand bed across its depth and/or plan area such as
resin impregnation technique (Clayton et al. 1994),
shear wave velocity based method using bender
element (Choi et al. 2010), fixed volume method i.e.,
the evaluation of relative density using small containers
across the depth (Lo Presti et al. 1993, Ghosh et al.
2014), penetration test using miniature cone (Fretti et al.
1995, Choi et al. 2010, Dave and Dasaka 2012) and
dynamic penetrometer (Mohammadi et al. 2008, Alam
et al. 2014). Among the aforementioned methods, it has
been evidently proven that the assessment of uniformity
and resistance of the prepared sand bed could be
achieved using the dynamic penetrometer which is
found to be simpler, quicker and cost effective tool. In
the present study, scale down model of Jornada
dynamic penetrometer (Herrick and Jones 2002) has
been used in order to perform the uniformity
characterization. The details of various components in

http://doi.org/10.3208/jgssp.OTH-30 331
the scale down model of dynamic penetrometer are
given in Table 1, whereas the dimensions are same as
that reported by Herrick and Jones (2002).
Table 1. Scale down details of Jornada dynamic penetrometer.
Component Material Make Weight (Kg)
Rod Aluminium Hollow
0.45
Strike plate Aluminium Solid
Adjustable Brass Solid
stopper
0.05
Cone head Stainless steel Solid 0.05
3 SOIL PROPERTIES, TEST SET-UP AND
METHODOLOGY
Four different Indian sands are considered for the
analysis, which are Ennore sand from Chennai;
Quartzanium sand from Ahmedabad; Kalpi sand from
the Yamuna river bed, Kalpi; and Bhadar sand from the
Bhadar river bed, Jasdan. Ennore and Quartzanium
sands are processed and classified as grade II as per IS
650:1991, whereas the river sands are sieved between
425 micron and 1 mm in order to obtain the same
gradation as that of grade II. The soil properties and
grain size distribution are mentioned in Srinivasan et al.
(2014). The test bed has been prepared in a mild steel
tank of size 0.6 0.6 0.6 m, where a clearance of 0.1
m is kept along the depth as free board. Conventional
rainfall pouring technique using an aluminium hopper
has been employed to prepare the sand bed as shown in
Fig.1.
Fig.1. Details of hopper.
The hopper facilitates to prepare the sand bed at
various relative densities by depositing the sand grains
at different heights of fall. By maintaining a constant
height of fall, the hopper has been swung back and
forth (to and fro) like a pendulum in order to achieve
the uniform raining over the sand bed. Once the sand
bed is prepared, the dynamic penetrometer has been
employed at various locations on the surface of the sand
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bed such as 1(0.1, 0.1), 2(0.3, 0.1), 3(0.5, 0.1), 4(0.1,
0.3), 5(0.3, 0.3), 6(0.5, 0.3), 7(0.1, 0.5), 8(0.3, 0.5) and
9(0.5, 0.5) to determine the homogeneity and the soil
resistance, where the dimensions are in (m) and the
locations are depicted considering the left most top
point of the tank to be (0, 0). Point 5 is referred as the
center, 1, 3, 7 and 9 as the corner and 2, 4, 6 and 8
as the peripheral points. The bulk dry densities are
calculated by evacuating the sand after each test and
measuring its weight in a weighing balance whose
accuracy is up to 10 gm.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 2 presents the variation of relative density with
the height of fall for different sands considered in the
present study. It can be observed that with increase in
the height of fall the relative density increases
exponentially. This phenomenon was incepted
mathematically by Vaid and Negussey (1984, 1988)
followed by many researchers (Lagioia et al. 2006,
Choi et al. 2010, Dave and Dasaka 2012) through
experimental investigations. Further it has also been
reported by several researchers (Rad and Tumay 1987,
Lagioia et al. 2006, Dave and Dasaka 2012) that it is
possible to obtain much denser specimens using
pluviation techniques compared to vibration
compaction methods provided in general codal
provisions. The same has been observed in the present
study as well. Since the scope of the present work is not
to explore the terminal height of fall at which the
relative density of the prepared soil specimen becomes
constant, the height of fall is kept limited to 60 cm as
shown in Fig. 2.
Fig.2. Variation of relative density with height of fall for
different sands.
In case of Ennore, Bhadar and Kalpi sand, 1.7 kg
hammer has been used in the dynamic penetrometer
with a strike height of 45 cm, whereas in case of
Quartzanium sand 1 kg hammer has been used with a with increase in the height of fall. Similar trend has
drop height of 35 cm since the cone tip hits the base of been observed for all the sands considered in the
the tank in case of Quartzanium sand with 1.7 kg present study. Similar observations have also been
hammer. The hollow aluminium pipe in the dynamic made by Choi et al. (2010).
penetrometer is graduated with a least count of 1 mm in
order to ease the fixing of movable stopper as well to
measure the depth of penetration of the instrument
inside the soil mass. The soil resistance has been
calculated using the procedures recommended by
Herrick and Jones (2002). Fig. 3 represents the
variation of the soil resistance with the height of fall
where the results corresponding to the peripheral and
the corner points depict the average soil resistance
value observed at the points (2, 4, 6 and 8) and (1, 3,
5 and 7) respectively. The line passing through the
corresponding center, peripheral and corner data points
imply the average resistance of all the 9 points. It can
be found that with increase in the height of fall, the
density increases and hence, there is an increase in the
soil resistance. Further, not much deviation is seen
between the average line and the corresponding center,
Fig.4. The variation of soil resistance with relative density for
peripheral and corner data points.
different sands.

Fig.3. Variation of soil resistance with height of fall for different Fig.5. Non-uniformity in depth of penetration at various test
sands. locations for Ennore sand at different height of fall (HF).

Fig. 4 shows the variation of relative density with the

soil resistance for all the four sands considered in the
present study. The trend shows that it follows almost a
linear pattern and the trend observed for different sands
are pretty similar to that noted between the normal and
residual shear stress variation of these sands obtained
from the direct shear test.
Figs. 5 and 6 present the non-uniformity or the spatial
variability in the measured depth of penetration of
dynamic penetrometer employed at various locations
across the plan area of the sand bed for Ennore and
Bhadar sand respectively. It can be seen that at lower
height of fall (HF) i.e., at lower relative density, the
non-uniformity in the measured depth of penetration
across the soil sample is found to be higher and the
undulation or the fluctuation of the curves decreases Fig.6. Non-uniformity in depth of penetration at various test
locations for Bhadar sand at different height of fall (HF).

333
 5 CONCLUSION
The present investigation elaborates on the
preparation of the sand bed at different relative
densities for various Indian sands using the rainfall
pouring technique. The resistance of the prepared and
reconstituted sand specimen has been accessed using
the dynamic penetrometer which is considered to be
one of the cost effective tools to quantify the soil
resistance in a quick manner. The present study also
exemplifies the variation of relative density of the sand
sample in order to check the uniformity of the
reconstituted specimen.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The third author would like to acknowledge the
financial support provided by the Department of
Science and Technology (DST), India to carry out the
present work through a sponsored research project (Ref
No. SR/S3/MERC-021/2011 (G)).
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