Abstract
Soil disturbance caused by boring and the stress relief of soil around a borehole left unsupported may influence the parameters obtained from the Menard pressuremeter (abbreviated as MP). The paper presents the results of tests obtained from a self-boring pressuremeter (abbreviated as SBP) devised by the author for a variety of soils such as soft clay, loose sand dense sand distributed in the northern coast of Tokyo Bay. The instrument containing self-boring mechanism is statically penetrated into ground, digging a hole simultaneously. The undrained shear strength of soft clay obtained from the SBP test was well correlated with that obtained from undrained triaxial tests for undisturbed samples reconsolidated under the pressure equivalent to the effective mean stress in situ. The shear modulus during undrained deformation of soft clay obtained from the SBP test was, in general, well correlated to that obtained from triaxial tests. The strength and modulus of cohesive soils were considerably under-estimated by unconfined compression tests.The shear modulus obtained from the SBP was approximately 2 to 7 times greater than that obtained from the MP test. For the soils investigated, aside from loose sand, no significant difference in the limit pressure was conceived between the SBP test and the MP test.
