Proceedings ISC-2 on Geotechnical and Geophysical Site Characterization, Viana da Fonseca & Mayne (eds.

)
2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5966 009 9

Drilling process monitoring for ground characterization during soil

nailing in weathered soil slopes
Z.Q. Yue, J.Y. Guo, L.G. Tham & C.F. Lee
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China

Keywords: DPM, drilling process monitoring, soil nailing, ground characterization, slope engineering
ABSTRACT: This paper presents a drilling process monitor (DPM) and associated factual data and results for
ground characterization in weathered volcanic rocks. The DPM is an in-situ device and can be used to automatically and continuously monitor the process of drilling production holes in the ground. Such holes are
used for installation of soil nails, ground anchors or raking drains in slope stabilization. Percussive rotary
drilling machines are usually used because of their productivity and flexibility. The DPM data are compared
with other ground investigation data. The comparisons show that the DPM data can be used to characterize
the ground conditions in weathered volcanic rocks. Such ground characterization can rationalize and enhance
soil nail design and construction without any major increase in construction cost.
1

INTRODUCTION

In Hong Kong, adoption of soil nailing technique to

slope stabilization started in 1985. Since then, soil
nailing has become a measure of choice for stabilizing potentially unstable cut slopes and retaining
walls (Wong and Pang, 1999; Wan and Yue, 2003;
Yue et al., 2003a). Basically, soil nailing is an in-situ
technique of reinforcing soil slopes by installing
closely spaced, near horizontal unstressed slender
inclusions in the ground. The unstressed slender inclusions (or soil nails) are usually made of steel bars
covered with grout. One of the basic works in soil
nail construction is to drill a hole in the ground. Soil
nails are designed to have sufficient tensile strength
to resist forces induced by any lateral displacements
within the slope soil mass. Therefore, the ground
characteristics surrounding each soil nail are important to the long-term performance of soil nails and
slopes.
In view of the importance of detailed ground information surrounding soil nails, we have launched
and completed a research and development project
in ground characterization from drilling production
holes for soil nail installation (Sugawara et al., 2003;
Tan et al., 2003; Yue et al., 2001; 2002; 2003b;
2004). We have developed an innovative digital
drilling process monitor (DPM) for such objective.
The DPM is a portable in-situ device and can be
mounted to any existing drilling machines. It can
automatically, objectively and continuously measure
and record the drilling process while a hole is being

drilled in the ground. The drilling process is defined

by various drilling parameters at real time. The drilling parameters include the movement and rotation of
the drilling rod and bit system and the pneumatic
pressures that are applied to control and operate the
drilling rod and bit system. The DPM has been applied to slope upgrading projects in Hong Kong. In
the ensuing, case studies are presented to illustrate
the factual data and results that are obtained from
drilling holes for installation of soil nails in weathered volcanic soil and rock slopes. The results show
that the variations of the drilling parameters with
time can provide rich and useful factual data and information for geotechnical design and verification
and construction management and quality control.

Figure 1. General front view of a cut slope being stabilized

with soil nails and regrading.

SITE CONDITIONS

Figure 1 shows a general view of a cut slope site in

Hong Kong. The cut slope was formed in early
1980s for factory development. It comprises weathered coarse ash tuff. The completely decomposed
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tuff has a thickness varying between 13 and 25 m.

Large core stones are also observed in the completely decomposed tuff. Persistent relict joints were
also present in the completely decomposed tuff.
Since its formation, the cut slope had experienced
instabilities. A number of slope movement signs
such as presence of tension cracks were observed in
the cut slope. Slope stabilization works were therefore carried out to upgrade the cut slope to current
geotechnical standard in Hong Kong. Soil nails were
used as the main stabilization measure to make the
cut slope stable.

High drilling efficiency in a wide range of geomaterials including weathered granite and tuff
Low noise generation and
Various site accessibility.

Figure 2. A pneumatic percussive rotary drilling machine for

soil nailing in Hong Kong.

DRILLING MACHINE

Figure 2 shows the pneumatic percussive rotary

drilling machine with a down-the-hole hammer.
Such drilling machine is commonly used in drilling
holes for installation of soil nails in Hong Kong. The
machine basically has a drilling equipment system, a
crawler carrier system and a compressor. The compressor is not shown in the figures. The drilling
equipment system is mounted on the crawler carrier
system for transportation and positioning. The compressor supplies compressed air via a main pneumatic hose to the drilling equipment system. The
compressed air is the fluid that is used as a source of
energy for drilling. The drilling equipment system
consists of a manual control panel, a down-the-hole
hammer and other components for drilling and
power supplies. The manual control panel controls
the compressed air from the compressor and separates it into five smaller size pneumatic hoses to operate the drilling equipment system in the forms of
percussion, forward rotation, reverse rotation,
downward movement and upward movement.
This drilling machine penetrates the ground
mainly by percussion with the assistance of the rotational and thrust actions of the drill bit. The percussive action shatters the soils and rocks in the ground
whilst the rotational action tears them and the thrust
action indents them. Such type of drilling machines
has the following features and more details may be
found in Chugh (1992) and Jimeno et al. (1995).
Wide drilling versatility, for example, drilling direction can be vertical, horizontal or at any inclined or declined angles

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Each of the production holes for installation of

soil nails in slopes usually has a diameter between
100 and 150 mm, is declined about 10 to 20 and has
a length between 4 to 40 meters. The soil nail holes
at this cut slope site were 150 mm in diameter, declined at 15 and had lengths between 22 and 40 m.
During construction, drilling record sheets for soil
nails specified in the design drawings are required to
be filled by the operator according to his experience
and judgment and to be submitted to site supervision
staff every day. The drilling record sheets of a specific soil nail include the drilling depth and the estimated time that is required to penetrate to a depth in
the slope.
DRILLING PROCESS MONITOR

In the light of the popularity of soil nailing technique

as a slope stabilization measure in Hong Kong and
around the world, we have developed an in-situ device, named as the HKU Drilling Process Monitor
(DPM) to automatically and continuously measure
and record the drilling parameters of the drilling
process and operations in a digital manner and at
real time. The DPM comprises a sensor unit and a
data processing unit. The sensor unit includes transducers to measure the physical drilling parameters
including the position of the drilling chuck on the
sliding beam frame, the rotational speed of drill rods
and bit and the compressed air pressures for the
thrust, rotation, and percussion. The data processing
unit is made with reliable components for site use.
Output signals from the transducers are in the form
of voltage output or electrical pulses and are transmitted to the portable unit of data acquisition system
at a selected sampling frequency and then stored and
plotted in a personal computer. The sensor and data
processing units are small in size and are portable.
The transducers can be easily mounted on any existing drilling machines. Mounting the transducers
on a machine or removing the sensors from the machine are an easy and simple task and can be completed within a short time. The mounting and removing work have no side effect on the drilling machine
and operation. All transducers are heavy duty and
are protected to endure various site conditions including dust, water, heat, light, and vibrations. A
battery is used to supply a small amount of power
for well functioning of the monitoring system. Examples are given below to illustrate the DPM data
and results that are obtained from drilling holes for
installation of soil nails in the cut slopes comprising
weathered tuff.
2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5966 009 9

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

5.1 Original Data

Figures 3 to 7 show the original data from the DPM
for the complete progress of the drilling with the
pneumatic percussive rotary drilling machine for a
soil nail hole in the cut slope. Figure 3 shows the
movement of the chuck with respect to a fixed point
with the actual drilling time. Figures 4 to 6 show the
variations of the percussion, rotation and thrust pressures with the actual drilling time for the same soil
nail hole. Such complete drilling process includes
the drilling preparation at the very beginning, the
drilling process and the last operation for retrieving
the extension rods from the hole.

the upward chuck movement, respectively. All the

data were measured simultaneously at a sampling interval of one second. These DPM data are considered as factual data that can be used to figure out the
drilling operations with time for drilling each hole
with the machine.

Figure 6. Variation of the thrust pressure with the actual time

associated with the pneumatic percussive rotary drilling machine for drilling a soil nail hole at a cut slope.

Figure 3. Movement of the chuck with the actual time associated with the pneumatic percussive rotary drilling machine for
drilling a soil nail hole at a cut slope.

From the data in Figures 3 to 6, the following

drilling operations can be identified: It used twelve
extension rods. Each rod was about 3 m long. The
hole depth was about 39 m. The preparation time
was from 12:33:08 to 12:39:33. During this period,
one extension was added. The downward drilling
operation started at about 12:39:33 and completed at
about 14:41:53. Eleven extension rods were added
and drilled into the ground. The rod extraction then
started at about 14:42:53 and completed at about
14:58:14. It retrieved twelve extension rods and one
down-the-hole hammer with bit.
5.2 Penetration rate

Figure. 4 Variation of the percussion pressure with the actual

time associated with the pneumatic percussive rotary drilling
machine for drilling a soil nail hole at a cut slope.

Figure 5. Variation of the rotation pressure with the actual time

associated with the pneumatic percussive rotary drilling machine for drilling a soil nail hole at a cut slope.

The positive signs for the rotation and thrust pressures in Figures 5 and 6 indicate the forward rod rotation and the downward chuck movement while the
negative signs indicate the reverse rod rotation and

A detailed examination of the drilling operation has

shown that the drilling process can be classified into
the following seven distinctive processes:
penetrating process which stands for the advancement of drill hammer bit into new geomaterial in deeper depth.
pushing in or pulling back processes which stand
for the downward or upward movements of the
chuck and rods without actual drilling of the
geomaterial in the hole and without application
of percussion air pressure, respectively.
Flushing processing which stands for the downward or upward movements of the chuck and
rods without actual drilling of the geomaterial in
the hole and with application of percussion air
pressure
Tightening or loosing processes which stand for
the connection or disconnection of one rod segment with the existing rods in the hole and
stoppage process which stands for the period
when all the compressed air pressures are not being supplied.
The complete original data in Figures 3 to 6 can
be used to identify and distinguish the above seven

Proceedings ISC2 on Geotechnical and Geophysical Site Characterization, Viana da Fonseca & Mayne (eds.)

1221

drilling sub-process. Details can be found in Yue

(2001, 2002, 2003a, b, c). In particular, the hammer
bit advancement with the net time associated purely
with the penetrating process can be used to estimate
the penetration rate of the down-the-hole hammer bit
in the ground. For the DPM data in Figures 3 to 6,
the hammer bit advancement with the net time is
shown in Figure 7. It is evident that the gradient of
the curve in Figure 7 is the penetration rate of the
hammer bit for drilling the soil nail hole.

pletely decomposed tuff (which was exposed on the

slope surface); Zone 2 as a highly decomposed tuff;
Zone 3 as a moderately decomposed tuff; Zone 4 as
a highly decomposed tuff; Zone 5 as moderately decomposed tuff; and Zone 6 as a highly to moderately
decomposed tuff. It is noted that the completely decomposed tuff is considered as soil while the moderately decomposed tuff is considered as hard rock.
The highly decomposed granite has shear strength
and hardness between the completely and the moderately decomposed tuff.
6

VALIDATION

6.1 General
The penetration rate determined in Figure 7 has been
used as a signature to zone the weathering profile in
the cut slope. One may ask the following question:
how could the penetration rate determined in Figure
7 be used as a signature? In the ensuing, we will
give two other indirect factual data to answer the
question and to validate the present approach. One
factual data are the applied compressed air pressures
that powered the hammer bit to penetrate the ground.
The other is a total core recovery logging in an inclined drillhole adjacent to the soil nail hole.

Figure 7. Depth advancement of the hammer bit in a cut slope

with the net time associated with the drilling of a soil nail hole.

It is evident in Figure 7 that the hammer bit advancement with the net drilling time can be distinctively classified into size zones below:
Zone 1: which is from the depth 6.474 m to the
depth 18.41 m and its average penetration rate is
2.357 m/minute.
Zone 2: which is from the depth 18.41 m to the
depth 24.63 m and its average penetration rate is
1.032 m/minute.
Zone 3: which is from the depth 24.63 m to the
depth 30.59 m and its average penetration rate is
0.525 m/minute.
Zone 4: which is from the depth 30.59 m to the
depth 35.47 m and its average penetration rate is
0.928 m/minute.
Zone 5: which is from the depth 35.47 m to the
hole end 37.33 m and its average penetration rate
is 0.343 m/minute.
Zone 6: which is from the depth 37.33 m to the
hole end 38.74 m and its average penetration rate
is 0.724 m/minute.
Based on the completely decomposed tuff and the
core-stones exposed on the cut slope surface and
ground investigation logging, we may have the following geological interpretation: Zone 1 as a com1222

Figure 8. Penetration rate of a DPM zone v.s. the average compressed air pressures applied for drilling that zone.

6.2 Compressed air pressures

For each of the six zones determined in Figure 7, we
can calculate the three average compressed air pressures from the DPM pressure measurements in Figures 4 to 6. The three pressures were for the actions
of percussion, forward rotation and downward thrust
of the hammer bit, respectively. The penetration rate
of a zone would be associated with three average
compressed air pressures for that zone. The results
are shown in Figure 8.
From Figure 8, it is evident that the lower penetration rates are associated with higher average values of the compressed air pressures. Such finding
validates that the penetration rate is a signature for
2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5966 009 9

ground drillability and hardness. The higher the

penetration rate, the weaker the ground material and
verse visa. For weathered tuff, the higher the decomposition, the lower the tuff strength and the
higher the penetration rate under the same applied
drilling power.
6.3 Total core recovery
During the ground investigation for slope stabilization assessment and soil nail design, a number of inclined drillholes were carried out to explore the
ground conditions. One of the inclined drillholes
was located at about 12.25 m adjacent to and 1.5 m
above the soil nail hole. The inclined drillhole had a
declination angle 15 exactly the same as that of the
soil nail hole. The inclined drillhole had water as the
flushing medium.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper has presented the use of a digital drilling

process monitor (DPM) in characterizing weathered
tuff profiles during drilling production holes for soil
nail installation. The case studies presented above
have shown that the DPM data can provide rich and
useful factual information on the drilling operations,
the drillhole depth and the subsurface conditions. A
method for determining the penetration rate of
pneumatic percussive rotary drilling machine with a
down-the-hole hammer bit in weathered tuff. The
penetration rate can be used as a signature to zone
the tuff weathering profile. Further data have also
been presented to validate the zoning results. A more
detailed understanding of the ground conditions can
benefit soil nail design and construction in slope engineering without any major cost increase.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council
of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China
(Project No. HKU 7005/01E).
REFERENCES

Figure 9. DPM zoning with the variation of total core recovery

in an adjacent inclined drillhole.

Its total core recovery with the inclined hole

depth is shown in Figure 9, where the DPM zoning
results are also illustrated. From Figure 9, it is evident that the Zones 1 and 2 correspond to the weathered soil zones with almost zero total core recovery.
The Zones 3, 4 and 5 correspond to weathered rock
zones with zero to 100 % total core recovery. The
geological logging of the recovery cores indicates
that the recovered cores were highly and moderately
decomposed tuff. This comparison again demonstrates that the penetration rate in Figure 8 can be
used to zone the tuff weathering profiles and can be
used to differentiate the boundary between soils and
rocks.

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2004 Millpress, Rotterdam, ISBN 90 5966 009 9