BEARing CAPACITY DETERMINATION OF SANDY SOIL LAYER USing LIGHT WEIGHT PENETRATION TEST

The objective of this research was to study the effect of the 3 apex angles of cone and the water levels on the bearing capacity of sandy soil layer by using kunzelstab test. The silty sandy soil (SM) was used as the representative of sandy soil. According to the results, the cone angle increase, a number of blows increase and the adjusted factors of the blows from the apex angles of 60º and 180 º to be that of the apex angle of 90º (control) were 1.118 and 0.878, respectively. The correlation of the blows against the internal friction angles of SM soil can be used for calculating the soil bearing capacity under the condition that the depth was deeper than 1 m below the ground surface. The soil bearing capacity of SM soil below the water level decreases 70-75 percent compering to dry soil. The bearing capacity of SM soil above the water level up to 0.6 m decreases 25-30 percent compering to that of the dry soil at the same depth. Therefore, the calculation of the soil bearing capacity in the silty sandy soil layer should be considered the effect of the water level.

I would like to thank Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin, Thailand for providing funding for this research. Also, we thank Mr. Buncha Oncham, Mr.Somphop Makkayai and Mr.Suttisak Intarasanit for operating  kunzelstab test.