Initial design and testing of a new site investigation tool for the direct determination of p-y soil reaction curves: ROBOCONE




Initial design and testing of a new site investigation tool for the direct determination of p-y soil reaction curves: ROBOCONE


This paper presents the initial design, specification, testing and calibration of a new site investigation tool aiming to provide direct characterisation of the ‘p-y’ soil reaction curves. This tool, developed within the ROBOCONE project consists of a dedicated ‘p-y’ module to be attached behind the cone of a conventional CPT. The proposed module is capable of horizontal translation with respect to the CPT rod, imposing kinematic conditions different from those of the conventional pressuremeter and dilatometer, and fully resembling those of a miniature laterally loaded pile. Beyond the main design features and performance specification of this innovative module, this paper presents some initial preliminary tests to investigate the capability and output of the device in addition to its sensor calibration. Initial testing has been performed in a miniature calibration chamber. It is shown that the module can be used to apply both monotonic and complex displacement-loading histories, while obtaining the expected shape of soil reaction. The potential for implementation in ‘whole-life’ geotechnical design approaches will be discussed, however development of the theoretical framework for the full interpretation of the module results is outside the scope of this paper.

J. Creasey; Mehdi Hajjar; A. T. Conn; Erdin Ibraim; Abigail H. Bateman; G. Mylonakis; G. Martin; A. Diambra; Kai Wen; Benjamin Cerfontaine; S. M. Gourvenec; D. J. White; David Igoe; S. Kasyap


18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE2024)



E - Environment, water and energy