introductory soils book

This is pretty basic - pick up an introductory soils book - say by Coduto - assuming your
pad is concrete?

The "unconfined" compressive strength is equal to 2 times the undrained shear strength.
For all intents and purposes the ultimate bearing capacity is 6 times the undrained shear
strength (where c in cNc is the undrained shear strength) or 3 times the unconfined
compressive strength. Apply an appropriate factor of safety (say 3) to the these - or the
allowable bearing capacity = 2 times undrained shear strength or is equivalent to the
unconfined compressive strength. You may want to check the allowable settlement which
may reduce the allowable bearing capacity to a lower allowable bearing pressure. If you
have the capability to shimmy the drilling pads, then the allowable bearing capacity should
be suitable.

Shouldn't the ultimate bearing capacity be about 5 times the undrained strength? Nc=5.14
(Meyerhof Bearing Capacity factors) or are you using Nc= 5.7 (Terzaghi Bearing Capacity
Factors) either way wouldn't it be more conservative to adopt 5 times? (or am I missing
something here?)
Ron (Structural

The test you are looking for a called a plate bearing test or plate load test, and it is neither difficult nor
particularly time consuming to run. It does require some experience in doing it properly and a geotechnical
engineer should interpret the results. Test cost can run from about $750 on the low side to more than $2000
on the high side.

Based on the soil conditions you described, I would be concerned about settlement of the line at least as much
as I would be concerned about the bearing capacity. Please note that the bearing capacity is not a predictor of
long term settlement and I would suggest you get a geotechnical Eng. involved to do appropriate soil test
borings and consolidation tests in the poorer soils you expect to encounter.

TAC (Geotechnical

I agree with Ron.

FYI, a pocket penetrometer is a tool for estimating the unconfined compressive strength of a clayey soil. It
does not measure bearing capacity. Bearing capacity isn't a measurable soil property, it will vary with footing
width, soil unit weight, and soil strength with depth.

We use pocket penetrometers in the lab to help evaluate undrained shear strength (0.5 * unconfined
compressive strength) of soil samples from split spoon samplers. With this value, the blow counts, our
experience with local soils and with specific foundation info (width, depth, etc.) we can estimate an allowable
bearing capacity.

In the field we use hand penetrometers to verify that the soil strength in the footing excavations is similar to
what we anticipated from the soil borings. Without soil borings however, the tool is more or less useless in the
field because bearing capacity is effected by soil strength with depth below a structure and the hand
penetrometer only measures soil strength at the surface.

A lot a people don't like or trust the values from hand penetrometers. We've found that they are pretty good
estimates for the unconfined compressive strength of our local clayey soils, but we don't rely solely on them
when recommending soil bearing capacities.

I've used a pocket penetrometer on a number of occasions to obtain an assessment of the undrained shear
strength of clays when sinking shafts. I have carried out these tests alongside hand shear vane tests and have
had very good correlation in the results.

I think that this is a case of "horses for courses" and it is a great tool for quick checking of your borehole data,
or indeed proving your borehole data to be inaccurate but no way should this be your primary form of SI.

As for your particular problem, if you are carrying your pipeline on a piled raft then why are you worried about
the strength of your formation? For bearing capacities we rely either on plate bearing tests or SPT results
which e can match against the design charts for foundations.