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An experimental study was carried out to evaluate the influence of silt content on cone penetration measurements and its implication for soil classification. The investigation includes twenty-seven peizocone tests in saturated salty sand samples, which had been prepared in a big rigid thick walled steel cylinder-testing chamber. The samples were prepared with several different silt contents ranging from 0 to 50 percent and were consolidated at three-overburden effective stresses including 100, 200 and 300 kPa. This study showed that, the amount of silt content in sand is an important parameter affecting CPT results. As the silt content increases, the cone tip resistance decreases. The recorded excess pore water pressure during sounding was increased with increasing silt content. It is also concluded that friction ratio, in general, increases with increasing silt content. The method presented by Robertson and Wride [25] and Olsen [17] to evaluate soil classification are also verified.

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This paper highlights the effect of silt content on cone tip resistance in loose silty sand. In this study, twenty-seven cone penetration tests are performed in saturated silty sand samples with several different silt contents ranging from 10 to 50 percent. The samples are consolidated at three overburden stresses including 100, 200 and 300 kPa. It is shown that, as the silt content increases, the cone tip resistance decreases. In high percent of silt (30-50%), the cone tip resistance decreases more gently compared with low percent of silt (0-30%). It is also concluded that the method proposed by Olsen (1997) for stress normalization of cone tip resistance compared with the Robertson and Wride (1998) method has better agreement with the obtained results. To evaluate liquefaction potential of loose silty sand, the method presented by Robertson and Wride (1998) is also studied. The results showed that the use of Robertson and Wride (1998) method to estimate the fine content from CPT data causes some uncertainty especially for high silt content (FC>30%).

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Series of undrained monotonic triaxial tests and cone penetration tests were conducted on loose silty sand samples to study correlation between undrained shear strength of silty sands (Sus) and piezocone test results. CPT tests were conducted at 27 silty sand samples in calibration chamber. The results indicate that, in low percent of silt (0-30%), as the silt content increases, the undrained shear strength (Sus) and cone tip resistance (qc) decreases. It is shown that, fines content affects undrained shear strength (Sus) and cone tip resistance (qc) similarly. On the basis of obtained results, equations were proposed to determine the normalized cone tip resistance (qc1n) and undrained shear strength (Sus) of silty sand in term of fines content. Finally based on those equations, a correlation between normalized cone tip resistance and undrained shear strength of silty sand is presented. It is shown that the normalized undrained shear strength and normalized cone tip resistance of loose silty sands (F.C. <30%) decreases with increase of silt contents.

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In recent years, soil reinforcement is considered of great importance in many different civil projects. One of the most significant applications of soil reinforcement is in road construction. Sub grade soil and its properties are very important in the design of road pavement structure. Its main function is to give adequate support to the pavement from beneath. Therefore, it should have a sufficient load carrying capacity. The use of geosynthetics in road and airfield construction has shown the potential to increase the soil bearing capacity. One category of geosynthetics to particular, geogrid, has gained increasing acceptance in road construction. A geogrid is a geosynthetic material consisting of connected parallel sets of tensile ribs with apertures of sufficient size to allow strike-through of surrounding soil, stone, or other geotechnical material. Geogrid reinforcement of sub grade soil is achieved through the increase of frictional interaction between the soil and the reinforcement. Geogrid have been successfully used to provide a construction platform over subgrades. In this application, the geogrid improves the ability to obtain compaction in overlying aggregates, while reducing the amount of material required be removing and replacing. Relative agreement exists that substantial benefits can be achieved from the inclusion of geogrids within the pavement systems however, the quantity of the improvement is in relative disagreement. This paper presents the effects of plasticity index and also reinforcing of soft clay on CBR values. Three samples of clay with different plasticity index (PI) values are selected and tested without reinforcement. Then by placing one and two layer of geogrid at certain depth within sample height, the effects of reinforcement and PI on CBR values are investigated in both soaked and unsoaked conditions. The results shows that as the PI increase the CBR value decreases and reinforcing clay with geogrid will increase the CBR value.

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In this study a series of cyclic triaxial tests were performed to examine the undrained dynamic resistance of silty sand reinforced with various arrangements of geotextile layers. The silt content of samples varies in percentage from 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%. A total of 32 laboratory cyclic triaxial tests have been performed on silty sand samples reinforced with geotextile layers in different depths. All tests were performed with 100 kPa confining pressure, subjected to an isotropic consolidated undrained (CIU) condition. The tests were conducted at a frequency of 2 Hz. Results indicate that both the geotextile arrangement and the silt content were most essential in the liquefaction potential of reinforced sands. An increase in the number of geotextile layers enhanced the cyclic resistance of reinforced samples against the liquefaction potential. It was also found that when the geotextile layer was posited near the top of the specimen (load application part) the liquefaction resistance would increase (e.g. for clean sands, the improvement of liquefaction resistance caused by the geotextile layer had a 0.2 depth, and the sample height was 5.5 times greater than the geotextile layer inserted in mid height of sample H). Based on the obtained results, effects of geotextile on liquefaction resistance decreased as fines content increased to about 33%. Further increase in the fines content however, would lead to higher in reinforcement advantages. The liquefaction improvement is more effective with a higher number of geotextile layers. The results also revealed that the reinforcement effect in FC≈33 % is at its lowest amount.