(PAPER) Sedran E.A. (2013 ICSMGE) Relationship Between Menard EM and Young's E Moduli For Cohesionless Soils
(PAPER) Sedran E.A. (2013 ICSMGE) Relationship Between Menard EM and Young's E Moduli For Cohesionless Soils
(PAPER) Sedran E.A. (2013 ICSMGE) Relationship Between Menard EM and Young's E Moduli For Cohesionless Soils
Proceedings of the 18 International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
ABSTRACT : Pressuremeter testing (PMT) provides stress-strain data for both pseudo-elastic and elasto-plastic ranges of soil
deformation. The Menard modulus EM calculated as the slope of the pseudo-elastic portion of the p vs. R curve, measures elastic
properties of the soil which are based on non-uniform stress and strain fields. As such EM cannot directly be identified with the
Young’s modulus of the soil, E. The Menard’s parameter is often used to estimate E from the measured EM. Although practical,
this empirical approach provides little insight into the interaction between the PMT probe and the surrounding soil. This paper
explores back-calculating EM of cohesionless soils knowing values of E, a priori. In this exercise, the behavior of soils under PMT
testing conditions is modeled using finite element analysis (FEA) assuming uniform values of E. FEA predictions are then used to
reconstruct pressuremeter p vs. R curves from which EM is back-calculated. In a parametric approach, the relation between EM and E
is plotted for a range of soil stiffness E values, and a range of values of the in-situ horizontal stresses p0. A relation between EM and E
for cohesionless soils is proposed.
KEYWORDS : in-situ testing; pressuremeter; elastic moduli; cohesionless soils; finite element analysis; back–calculation.
RÉSUMÉ : Le module pressiométrique Ménard EM mesure des propriétés élastiques du sol qui se basent sur des champs de
contraintes et de déformations non-uniformes. Le paramètre proposé par Ménard est souvent utilisé afin d’estimer le module de
Young à partir du module pressiométrique EM. Bien que pratique, cette approche empirique fournit peu d’informations sur
l’interaction entre la sonde pressiométrique et le sol avoisinant. Cet article explore le rétrocalcul de EM pour des sols pulvérulents
connaissant, a priori, les valeurs de E. Cette communication consiste à modéliser par méthode d’éléments finis (FEA) le comportement de sols
soumis à des essais pressiométriques en assumant des valeurs uniformes de . Les prédictions FEA sont alors utilisées pour tracer de
nouvelles courbes pressiométriques p vs. R desquelles EM est rétrocalculé. Dans une approche paramétrique, la relation entre EM et E
est tracée pour une gamme de valeurs de rigidité E, et pour une gamme de valeurs de contraintes horizontales in situ p0. Une relation
entre EM et E est ainsi proposée pour des sols pulvérulents.
MOTS-CLES : essais in situ, pressiomètre, module élastique, sols pulvérulents, analyse par éléments finis, rétrocalcul.
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Proceedings of the 18 International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
predicted footing settlements, which were consistently larger based on the assumption that the soil response is linear elastic,
than actual measured settlements. To compensate for this over with a constant value of the Young’s modulus throughout the
prediction of settlements, Menard and Rousseau suggested a soil mass being tested.
correction factor, later designated as the Menard’s factor, This is to say that while the PMT test captures the true
which helps to predict accurate quasi-elastic responses of soil behavior of the soil mass, the interpretation of the elastic
masses undergoing loading. In their approach, the elastic modulus using the linear elastic assumption is not sufficiently
modulus correlates to the Menard modulus using: accurate, and therefore differences between values of the
Menard’s and the Young’s moduli originate in the interpretation
(2) rather than in the PMT test itself.
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Proceedings of the 18 International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
(1987) and Clarke (1995). As such, care must be exercised modeling. In each particular analysis, a set of assumptions is
when predicting elastic deformations using values of ER in finite made to simplify the modeling of the particular aspect under
elements analyses. scrutiny.
In this study a series of assumptions and working hypotheses
1.4 Scope of present study are adopted with regards to the modeling of quasi-elastic soil
responses under PMT loading, prior to yielding. These
The main goal of this study is to explore the possibility of assumptions are listed in the discussion below.
finding a working correlation between the Menard modulus EM
and the Young’s modulus E. 2.1 Basic aspects of the soil behavior
For this purpose, a back-calculation approach was
developed, in which soil responses under PMT testing were The most important aspects controlling the behavior of a
generated using finite element modeling, as follows: cohesionless soil mass under PMT loading are:
For a given set of initial subsoil conditions, including Stress dependency of elasic moduli, i.e., confining stress
known values of in-situ stresses; Young´s modulus; and levels (Janbu 1963; Kolimbas et al. 1990) ; and
strength parameters, the soil response under PMT loading Strain-hardening behavior during quasi-elastic
is modeled using Finite Element Analyses (FEA); deformations (Prévost et al. 1975; Clarke 1995).
The predicted shape of the deformed membrane at the
interface with the borehole is then extracted (data post- Strength and dilantancy parameters are considered to control
processing) for each individual load step; soil behavior on the post-yield stage of the PMT loading, but
The volume expansion of such deformed membrane these do not have a significant impact during the quasi-elastic
conditions is then calculated by explicit integration, portions of PMT loading (Bolton 1986; Schanz et al. 1996).
thereby producing the typical pressure vs. volume (p-v) For the analyses at hand, the following conditions are
plot; assumed:
Using PMT interpretation procedures, the Menard
modulus is inferred from the post-processed p-v plot; and Rate of excess pore-pressure dissipation is faster than rate
A direct comparison between the assumed Young´s of PMT loading (drained conditions);
modulus and the back-calculated Menard modulus is At initial conditions the soil mass is considered to be
made. continuun, uniform, and isotropic; and
A value of the Poisson’s ratio = 0.3 is representative of
The back-calculation process was repeated for a series of fully drained behavior of the cohesionless soil.
values of initial horizontal stress p0, and Young`s modulus E.
In this parametric analysis, the relation between E and EM was 2.2 Finite elements modeling
plotted for different values of p0. This distribution was then
used to generate a correlation between E and EM for different Soil deformation under PMT loading was modeled using the
values of in-situ stresses p0. Hardening-Soil Model implemented into the Plaxis software
A suggested correlation between E and EM is thereby (Plaxis 2D version 8 - Material Models Manual). This model
presented, which is intended to assist geotechnical practitioners considers Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria; stress-dependency of
using PMT test results and Finite Element Analyses to predict the elastic moduli; and deviatoric and volumetric hardening
quasi-elastic deformation of soil-structures systems. behavior due to both, shear and compressive strains,
Comparisons with the Menard’s parameter are also attempted. respectively. Soil dilatancy after Rowe’s theory is also
considered (Schanz et al. 1996 and 1999).
The PMT test geometry was discretized using a
2 MODELING SOIL BEHAVIOR UNDER PMT TESTING 2-dimensional axisymmetric configuration for a PMT probe
with a length-to-diameter ratio of 6.5, typical of the Roctest
PMT loading imparts high levels of stress into the soil mass NX-sized PMT probe.
being tested. Depending on the state of compactness of a sandy Throughout the modeling the following intrinsic material
deposit, peak pressures can vary from 400 kPa (loose state) to in properties were used:
excess of 8000 kPa (very dense state). For a particular test, the
stress increase is maximum at the contact interface between the Poisson’s ratio = 0.3
probe and the borehole walls, rapidly decreasing away from the Effective angle of internal friction ’ = 35 o
borehole (Briaud 1992, Mair et al. 1987), resulting in non- Angle of dilatancy =2o
uniform distributions of stresses and strains.
Once the p- v response becomes non-linear, i.e., after applied This set of properties represents average values for
pressure exceeds the yield pressure pyield, portions of the soil cohesionless soils. In addition, a small amount of cohesion
near the borehole wall deform in the large-strain regime that c’ = 3 kPa was adopted to prevent soil failure upon unloading,
includes yielding. Away from the borehole the soil still deforms which the soil may experience near the borehole wall during
in the small-strain regime in a quasi-elastic manner. In other drilling or pre-boring.
words, once the stress increase exceeds the yield pressure, the Regarding state properties, initial effective stresses were
stress-strain behavior of the soil mass becomes highly non- determined using the ‘gravity loading’ feature of Plaxis for
linear. geostatic stress conditions. In this approach, the effective
This type of non-linear elastoplastic phenomena in a soil horizontal stresses are generated for a effective unit weight
mass exhibiting a wide range of strain/stress levels is very eff = sat – water , with an adopted value of sat = 20 kN/m3,
complex to analyze using any available mathematical and Poisson’s ratio of 0.3. For the stress ratio (hardening
formulation (Desai and Christian 1977; Potts and Zdravković parameter) a value of m = 0.5 was assumed, which is a value
1999). Other Authors (Carter 1986; De Sousa-Coutinho 1990; representative for both sands and silts (Janbu 1963;
Fahey 1993; Ladanyi 1998; Silvestri 2001 and 2009) Schmertmann 1986). The parameter m represents the stress-
investigating soil behavior under PMT testing have focused dependency of the elastic modulus on confining stress. The
their attention to particular aspects of the responses and their
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Proceedings of the 18 International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
failure ratio Rf = 0.9 was adopted to represent both sands and seals at both ends, whereas expression (1) assumes an infinitely
silts. long cavity expanding into the soil. The former case is
A range of simulations were completed for different values physically less stiffer and less accurate, than the latter.
of E and p0, which is discussed in the following sections. Under the same circumstances, but using the Hardening-Soil
Regarding the loading conditions the following stages were Model, the predicted soil response and associated p-v curve is
implemented: shown in Figure 2 with a curved line (data points are small
circles), which is typical of an actual PMT test response. The
1. Generation of in-situ initial stresses (gravity loading), interpreted Menard modulus using expression (1) was
2. Borehole drilling (unloading); EM = 24.4 MPa.
3. PMT test (step-wise, monotonic loading at the probe- This simple benchmark problem highlights, at least from a
borehole interface). numerical modeling point of view, the importance of strain-
hardening behavior under non-uniform distributions of stress
The adopted PMT loading procedure was consistent with the and strain developing during PMT testing.
pressure-controlled loading mode (stress-control procedure). It should be mentioned that an additional simulation was
This loading mode does not impose any constraints on the carried out for a different set of strength parameters, namely
deformed shape of the PMT membrane. ’ = 300 and = 50. No significant changes in the interpreted
values of EM were observed, suggesting that during the initial
part of the PMT test the strength parameters do not play a
3 FEA AND POST-PROCESSING RESULTS significant role in the quasi-elastic responses of the soil being
tested.
3.1 Menard modulus from predicted FE responses
The FEA modeling of the soil response provided vertical and 3.2 Parametric approach and back-calculation
radial displacements, y and R, throughout the soil mass at The relationship between the soil’s Young’s modulus and the
node locations for each pressure step. Based on the discretized inferred or back-calculated Menard modulus was generated for
geometry of the probe, a total of 33 nodes were located along a set of parametric variables, namely the Young’s modulus E
the probe-soil interface. and the in-situ initial horizontal stresses p0.
The volume expansion v of the probe, as it would be In order to cover a practical range of in-situ horizontal
observed by the test operator during actual test, was determined effective stresses, the following values for p0 were used:
by data post-processing using the FEA displacements; i.e., by
explicit integration of radial displacements over the length of 50; 100; 150; 200; and 350 kPa
the probe-soil interface. A particular volume increase vi was
determined for each pressure-step pi. This set of data points which would approximately represent testing depths from 5 to
was then plotted as the p-v curve, which was subsequently used 70 m below ground surface.
to determine the Menard modulus EM. Regarding the in-situ undisturbed elastic moduli, the
To validate the Plaxis model and associated post-processing following values for Eref50 were adopted:
calculations, a benchmark problem was developed for the case
of a pressuremeter test in a soil with an initial in-situ horizontal 5; 10; 15; 20; 30; 60; and 90 MPa
stress of 'h0 = 100 kPa, and Young’s modulus E = 30 MPa.
At first, the problem was analyzed using Plaxis Linear Plaxis Hardening-Soil model defines Eref50 as the reference
Elastic Soil model. The corresponding response and post- stiffness modulus, and the corresponding Young’s modulus is
processed p-v curve is illustrated in Figure 2 as the linear determined with the following expression:
distribution. The interpreted value of the Menard modulus,
i.e., using expression (1), yielded a back-calculated value of ′
EM = 31.6 MPa. This is to say, had the soil behavior been truly (3)
linear elastic, the interpreted value of EM would have been 5.3%
higher than the actual Young’s modulus, which is reasonably
This expression is valid for cohesionless soils (effective
accurate for the boundary-valued problem at hand.
cohesion is zero or negligible). The reference pressure
pa = 100 kPa is the atmospheric pressure. Furthermore, in the
context of these discussions, the following simplification
applies at initial conditions:
(4)
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Proceedings of the 18 International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
(5)
with
and
4 MENARD’S PARAMETER
Plaxis Parameters Back‐calculation FE analyses
Based on back-calculated values of EM, the corresponding
' ref
p*L EM /p*L
values of the predicted EM / E ratio are included in Table No. 1.
ho E50 E EM EM /E
For stress confinement levels above 100 kPa these predicted
[kPa] [MPa] [MPa] [MPa] [kPa] [‐] [‐] ratios compare rather well with those values of the Menard’s
5 6.6 6.3 360 18 0.95 parameter for silts and sand, both under NC and OC conditions,
10 13.3 11.9 510 23 0.90 namely ⅓, ½, and ⅔ (Baguelin et al. 1978, Briaud 1992). Based
15 19.9 17.8 600 30 0.89 on the present study, it appears that at lower confinement levels,
50 20 26.5 23.6 740 32 0.89 i.e., lower than 100 kPa, cohesionless soils are less affected by
30 39.8 35.2 860 41 0.88
the combined effect of strain-hardening and non-uniform strain-
60 79.6 70.5 1290 55 0.89
90 119.4 105.1 1610 65 0.88
stress distributions, in which case Menard moduli may be
similar to Young’s moduli.
5 9.1 7.2 550 13 0.79
10 18.2 14.0 640 22 0.77
15 27.3 21.0 1000 21 0.77
5 CONCLUSIONS
100 20 36.4 27.5 1110 25 0.76
30 54.5 41.1 1450 28 0.75
The stress-strain behavior of cohesionless soils under PMT test
60 109.1 81.4 2060 40 0.75
90 163.6 121.6 2560 48 0.74
conditions has been investigated using the finite element
method. For saturated soils under drained conditions, an elasto-
5 11.0 7.9 720 11 0.72
plastic hardening soil model was chosen to account for stress
10 22.0 14.6 1060 14 0.66
15 33.0 21.4 1270 17 0.65
hardening of the soils, the stress-dependency of the elastic
150 20 44.0 28.3 1480 19 0.64 modulus and the non-linear, elasto-plastic deformations near the
30 66.1 42.0 1670 25 0.64 test cavity.
60 132.1 81.5 2570 32 0.62
90 198.2 121.3 3000 40 0.61 Based on this numerical study, and for the conditions listed
5 12.6 7.7 1100 7 0.61 above, the following observations are made:
10 25.3 14.0 1310 11 0.55
15 37.9 20.2 1680 12 0.53 A relation between the Young’s modulus E and the
200 20 50.5 26.4 1860 14 0.52 Menard pressuremeter modulus EM is hereby
30 75.8 39.0 2340 17 0.51 proposed for cohesionless soils. Results from
60 151.6 76.5 3220 24 0.50
90 227.4 114.0 4050 28 0.50
expression (5) compare well with empirical values of
the Menard’s rheological parameters for stress
5 16.6 7.7 1240 6 0.46
10 33.2 13.3 1860 7 0.40
confinement above 100 kPa.
15 49.8 19.0 2290 8 0.38 The proposed relationship incorporates the effects of
350 20 66.4 24.9 2460 10 0.38 stress-dependency and strain-hardening via the
30 99.6 36.7 3480 11 0.37 contact pressure p0, as it is obtained from PMT
60 199.1 71.3 4900 15 0.36 testing data.
90 298.7 106.0 6100 17 0.35
The probe’s restrained ends have been taken into
account by the boundary-valued problem, therefore
Table 1. Correlation data between E and EM moduli
the proposed correlation between E and EM is
applicable to mono-cell type of probes. By using this
It is noted that expressions (5) to (7) consider the soil
approach there is no benefit or improvement in using
mechanics sign convention, where compression is positive.
Also, based on the nature of the regression analysis, relative probes with guard-cells, which can be cumbersome
errors associated with expression (5) are between ± 4% (lower to operate and difficult to repair in the field.
range of confining stresses p0) and ± 0.5 % (higher range of p0). Reload moduli ER should not be used as the Young’s
moduli for silts or sands under confining stress levels
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below 100 kPa as it could result in under-prediction Mair R.J. and Wood D.M. 1987. Pressuremeter testing: Methods and
of deformations or settlements. interpretation. Butterworth-Heinemann.
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cohesive frictional soils. Géotechnique 36, No. 3, 349-358.
Gomes Correia A., Antão A. and Gambin M. 2004. Using a non linear
constitutive law to compare Menard PMT and PLT E-moduli.
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Characterization, 2, Porto, Portugal, Vol. 1, 927-933.
Hughes J.M.O., Wroth C.P. and Windle D. 1977. Pressuremeter tests in
sands. Géotechnique 27, No.4, 455-477.
Janbu N. 1963. Soil compressibility as determined by oedometer and
triaxial testing. Proc. Of the European Conference of Soil
Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. Wiesbaden, Germany. 1:
19-25.
Kolymbas D. and Wu W. 1990. Recent results of triaxial tests with
granular materials. Powder Technology, 60. 99-119.
Ladanyi B. and Foriero A. 1998. A numerical solution of cavity
expansion problem in sand based directly on experimental stress-
strain curves. Canadian Geotechnical Journal 35, 541-559.