LECTURE 02

SOIL EXPLORATION
INTRODUCTION
The field and laboratory investigations required to obtain the
necessary data for the soil for the proper design and successful
construction of any structure at the site are collectively called soil
Exploration.

• The choice of the foundation and its depth, the bearing

capacity, settlement analysis depend very much upon the
various engineering properties of the foundation soils.

The Primary Objectives Of Soil Exploration Are:

• Determination of the nature of the deposits of soil.

• Determination of the depth and thickness of the various soil

strata and their extent in the horizontal direction.

• The location of ground water table (GWT)

• Obtaining soil and rock samples from the various strata.

• The determination of the engineering properties of the soil and

rock strata that affect the performance of the structure.

• Determination of the in-situ properties by performing field tests

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 Soil Data Required

• Soil profile
-Layer thickness and soil identification.

• Index properties
-Water content, Atterberg limits etc.

• Strength and compressibility characteristic

- 𝐶 ′ = cohesion, 𝐶𝑐 = compression index,
- 𝑂𝐶𝑅= overconsolidation ratio, 𝐶𝑢 = uniformity coefficient
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First Stage of Site Investigation

• Aerial photographs

• Topographical maps

• Existing site investigation reports (for nearby sites)

The is information are needed to be collected before commencing with

any site investigation.
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 SITE RECONNAISSANCE
• Site access
• Topography
• Site geology
• Conditions of adjacent structures.

METHODS FOR SOIL EXPLORATION

• Direct methods, this includes:

- Test pits, trial pits or trenches

• Semi-direct methods
- Boring

• Indirect methods
- Sounding or penetration test
- Geophysical methods
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Direct Methods- Test Pit

• Test pits or trenches are open type or accessible exploratory methods.
• Soils can be inspected in their natural condition.
• The necessary soils samples may be obtained by sampling techniques
and used for finding strength and other engineering properties by
appropriate laboratory test.
• Test pits are considered suitable only for small depths up to 3m, the
cost of these increases rapidly with depth.
• For greater depths, lateral support of bracing of the excavations will be
necessary .
• Test pits are usually made only for supplementing other methods or for
minor structures.
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 Semi-Direct Methods- Boring
• Boring: making or drilling bore holes into the ground with a view to
obtaining soil or rock samples from specified or known depth is called
boring.
• The common methods of advancing bore holes are:
- Auger boring, Wash boring, Rotary drilling, Precussion drilling.
Auger Boring
• Soil auger is a device that is useful for advancing a bore hole into the
ground.
• Augers may be hand-operated or power-driven. The former is used for
relatively small depths (less than 3 to 5m, while the latter is used greater
depth (up to 60 to 70 m in case of continuous- flight augers).
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Fig.1: Types of Auger and extension rod.

-The soil auger is advanced by rotating it while pressing it into the soil

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• As soon as the auger gets filled with soil, it is taken out and the soil
sample collected.
• The soil samples obtained from this type of borings are highly disturbed.
• Auger boring is convenient in case of partially saturated sands, silts and

medium to stiff cohesive soils.

Shell and Auger
• Is used widely in India and Southeast Asia.
• The shell, (is called a sand bailer) is a heavy duty pipe with a cutting
edge.
• The shell is raised and let fall in a whole.
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• The soil is cut, enters the tube which is emptied when fill.
• Shell is used when auger boring becomes difficult;

Fig.2: Shell and auger boring

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 Wash boring
• Wash boring is commonly used for exploration below ground water
table for which the auger method is unsuitable.

• This method may be used in all kinds of soils except those mixed gravel

and boulders.

• A casing pipe is pushed in and driven with a drop weight.

• A hollow drill bit is screwed to a hollow drill rod connected to a rope

passing over a pulley and supported by tripod.

• Water jet under pressure is forced through the rod and bit into the hole

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• This loosens the soil at the lower end and forces the soil-water
suspension upwards along the annular surface between the rod and
the side of the hole.
• This suspension is led to a setting tank where soil particles settle
while the water over flows into a sump. The water collected in the
sump is used for circulation again.

Fig.3: Wash boring

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 • The soil particles collected represent a very disturbed sample and is
not very useful for the evaluation of the engineering properties.
• Wash borings are primarily used for advancing bore holes; whenever
a soil sample is required, the chopping bit is to be replaced by a
sampler.
• The change of the rate of progress and change of colour of wash water
indicate changes in soil strata

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Rotary Drilling
• Can be used in sands, clay and rocks (unless badly fissured).

• A drill bit, fixed to the lower end of the drill rod, is rotated by power while
being kept in firm contact with the hole.

• Drilling fluid or bentonite slurry is forced under pressure through the drill
rod and it comes up bringing the cuttings to the surface.

• Even rock cores may be obtained by using suitable diamond drill bits.

• When soil samples are required, the drilling rod is raised and drilling bit
is replaced by a sampler.

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 Precussion Drilling
• A heavy drill bit is suspended from a drill rod or a cable and is driven
by repeated blows.

• Water is added to facilitate the breaking of stiff soil or rock.

• The slurry of the pulverized material is bailed out at intervals.

• The method cannot be used in loose sand and is slow in plastic clay.

• The formation gets badly disturbed by impact.

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Types of soil samples

• Samples of soil taken out of natural deposits for testing may be

classified as: disturbed sample, undisturbed

• A disturbed sample is that in which the natural soil structure gets

modified partly or fully during sampling.

• An undisturbed sample is that in which the natural soil structure and

other physical properties remain preserved.

• Disturbed sample can generally be used for.

- Grain-size analysis determination of liquid and plastic limits.

- Specific gravity of soil solids
- Organic content determination
- Soil classification
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 Undisturbed samples must be used for
- Consolidation test
- Hydraulic conductivity test
- Shear strength test.

Where: O.D : Outer diameter of sample

I. D : Inner Diameter of sample
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Sample disturbance

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The degree of disturbance of a cohesive or rock sample can be estimated
by recovery ratio, Lr
𝐴𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒
𝐿𝑟 =
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒
Where:
𝐿𝑟 = 1( recovered length of the sample= the length sampler was forced
into the stratum).
Theoretically, the sample did not become compressed from friction on the
tube.
𝐿𝑟 = 1 indicates a good recovery
𝐿𝑟 < 1 indicates that the soil is compressed
𝐿𝑟 > 1 indicates that soil has swelled
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Split spoon sampler

• A driven shoe attached to the lower end serves as the cutting edge.
A sample head may be screwed at the upper end of the split spoon.

• The standard size of the spoon sampler is of 35mm internal and

50.8mm external diameter.

• The sampler is lowered to the bottom of the bore hole by attaching it

to the drill rod.

• The sampler is then driven by forcing it into the soil by blows from a
hammer.
• The assembly of the sampler is then extracted from the hole and the
cutting edge and coupling at the top are unscrewed. The two halves
of the barrel are separated and the sample is thus exposed
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Samples are generally taken at intervals of about 1,53m(5ft)

Fig. 4: Split spoon sampler

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For standard split-spoon sampler

(50.8)2 − (35)2
𝐴𝑅 = × 100 = 112%
(35)2
Hence the samples are highly disturbed.
When the material encountered in the field is sand (particularly fine sand
below the water table) a device such as a spring catcher is placed inside the
split spoon.
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 Thin Walled Sampler
• Commonly used to obtain undisturbed clayey samples.

• Outside diameter: 50.8mm (2 in) and 76.3mm (3 in).

• Sampler with a 50.8mm outside diameter has an inside diameter about

47.63mm. the area ratio is

(50.8)2 − (47.63)2
𝐴𝑅 = × 100 = 13.75%
(47.63)2

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How Many Bore Holes

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 Spacing of Borehole
Table.1: borehole spacing (Das, B. M,1999)
Type of project Spacing (m)
Multistory building 10-30
One-story industrial plants 20-60
Highways 250-500
Residential subdivision 250-500
Dams and dikes 48-80

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Minimum Depth Of Borehole (ASCE,1972)

-Vertical or effective stress will increase as the depth increases.

-Net increment of the stress do to applied external load decreases as the depth
increases.
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The minimum depth of boring for a building with a width of 30.5m (100ft) will
be as follows (Sowers and Sowers, 1970).

Table.2: Depth of boring (Sowers and Sowers, 1970)

Number of stories Boring depth (m)
1 3.5
2 6.0
3 10
4 16
5 24

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Depth of Boring (Is 1892-1970)

Table.3: Depth of boring (Is 1892-1970)
Type foundation
Isolated spread footing or
raft
Adjacent footing with clear
spacing less than twice the
width
Pile and well foundation
(a) Road cut, (b) fill
Depth of boring
One and half times the width (B) of the
foundation
One and half time the length (L) of footing
To a depth of one and half times the width
of structure from the level (toe of pile or
bottom of bearing well)
Equal to the bottom width of the cut two
meters below ground level or equal to the
height of the fill whichever is greater.

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 Other Boring Conditions

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Ground Water Level

A correct indication of the general ground water level is found by allowing

the water in the boring to reach an equilibrium level.

In sandy soils, the level gets stabilized very quickly within a few hours at
the most.

In clayey soils, it will take many days for this purpose. Hence, standpipes
or piezometers are use in clays and silt.
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We should know the location of water table also is a very important issue
because when water table changes, the bearing capacity of the soil and
the settlement also changes. Before we design the foundation, we must
know what the location of the water table. To achieve that we need to do
the borehole in the ground, we can also pour water in the borehole and
allow this water to settle down and reach the equilibrium condition, no
changes of water table.

Generally we design shallow foundations for the Bearing Capacity

criteria & for settlement criteria. For the settlement, we take the sample
at the depth below the foundation equal minimum the twice the wide of the
foundation (shallow) and for the bearing capacity we collect the sample at
the depth below the foundation equal to the wide of the foundation.
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