Stress History Estimation Method of Underconsolidated Soil by Partial Piezocone Dissipation Tests

The paper discusses a new method to put forward to determine the initial pore pressure by extrapolating the last segment of measured pore pressure versus the inverse square root of time scale through incomplete pore pressure dissipation test. For underconsolidated soil, the estimated initial pore pressure is greater than the hydrostatic pore pressure. With the calculation of the initial pore pressure, the status of the consolidation of underconsolidated soil can be evaluated by calculating the apparent degree of consolidation which is defined as excess pore pressure generated by piezocone penetration divided by the difference between the total pore pressure measured by piezocone and in situ hydrostatic pore pressure. The apparent degree of consolidation is less than one as the soil is underconsolidated. The Northern Expressway Connection project of Chongqi Bridge is introduced as an example of practical application. In this case, the studied area is slightly underconsolidated, which is consistent with the results of the laboratory oedometer tests. Finally, compared with overconsolidation ratio (OCR) values from the oedometer tests, a new formula to estimate the OCR of underconsolidated soil using the apparent degree of consolidation was presented. It indicates that the OCR of underconsolidated soil can be proposed directly from partial piezocone dissipation tests.