Field Site Characterization of a Coastal Aeolian Sandy Subgrade for a Proposed Tank Farm Site in Peru

Abstract

Analysis of shallow foundations, pavements, and slabs-on-grade requires adequate site characterization of the nearsurface soils. Key properties required for the above are the soil stiffness and its nonlinearity. In this paper, we present the results of field site characterization at a coastal aeolian sand site located in Villa El Salvador, Peru, where large storage tanks are being proposed to be supported on concrete slabs-on-grade and shallow ring foundations. The site characterization included standard penetration tests (SPT), dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP) tests, lightweight deflectometer (LWD) testing, and geophysical tests such as multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW), seismic refraction, and electrical resistivity. The paper focuses on estimating elastic soil stiffness (Es) values on the main bearing layer of the tanks. The observed large variability of Es estimates was associated with inherent soil variability at the site, the in-situ test method, and the use of empirical correlations between Es and different in-situ tests. Good elastic soil stiffness estimates for the bearing layer (Upper SP sand) were required to make reliable estimates of absolute and differential settlements for the tanks. Due to soil nonlinearity, the elastic stiffness values from the different methods decreased with increasing levels of shear strains associated with each test. Accordingly, the highest elastic stiffness values were from the MASW, followed by the LWD, and the lowest from SPT-based correlations. The soil stiffness estimates using SPT-based correlations yielded the highest variability due to the high uncertainty and low confidence of the empirical correlations between Es and SPT field values.

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