Offshore developments for hydrocarbon resources have now progressed to water depths approaching 2500 m. Due to the difficulties and high cost in recovering high quality samples from deepwater site, there is increasing reliance on in situ tests such as piezocone and full-flow (i.e. T-bar and ball) penetration tests for determining the geotechnical design parameters. This research was undertaken in collaboration with the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), as part of a joint industry project, to improve the reliability of in situ tests in determining design parameters and to improve offshore site investigation practice in deepwater soft sediments. In this research, a worldwide high quality database was assembled and used to correlate intact and remoulded shear strengths (measured from laboratory and vane shear tests) with penetration resistances measured by piezocone, T-bar and ball penetrometers. The overall statistics showed similar and low levels of variability of resistance factors for intact shear strength (N-factors) for all three types of penetrometer. In the correlation between the remoulded penetration resistance and remoulded shear strength, the resistance factors for remoulded shear strength (Nrem-factors) were found higher than the N-factors. As a result, the resistance sensitivity is less than the strength sensitivity. The correlations between the derived N-factors and specific soil characteristics indicated that the piezocone N-factors are more influenced by rigidity index than those for the T-bar and ball penetrometers. The effect of strength anisotropy is only apparent in respect of N-factors for the T-bar and ball penetrometers correlated to shear strengths measured in triaxial compression. On the other hand, the Nrem-factors showed slight tendency to increase with increasing strength sensitivity but were insensitive to soil index properties. These findings suggest that the full-flow penetrometers may be used to estimate remoulded shear strength and are potentially prove more reliable than the piezocone in estimating average or vane shear strength for intact soil but the reverse is probably true for the estimation of triaxial compression strength.

[Truncated abstract] This research has studied the penetration and extraction resistance profiles of different types of penetrometers in soft clay. The penetrometers of interest include the cone, T–bar, ball and plate. Effects of the surface roughness and aspect ratio of the T–bar penetrometer on its resistance have also been investigated. Undrained shear strength, Su, profiles derived from the penetration tests are compared with the shear strengths measured from field vane shear tests and laboratory (triaxial and simple shear) tests. Both in situ and centrifuge model penetration tests were undertaken for the research. In addition, ‘undisturbed’? tube samples were retrieved from both the field and the centrifuge strongbox samples (after completion of the centrifuge tests) for laboratory testing. The in situ testing was carried out in Western Australia, at the Burswood site near Perth, with tests including cone, T–bar, ball and plate penetrometer tests, and vane shear tests. Interestingly, the T–bar, ball and plate (‘full-flow’) penetrometers showed a narrow band of resistance profiles both during penetration and extraction, with a range of around 15 % between the highest and lowest profiles and standard deviation of 15 %. However, the cone penetrometer gave similar resistance at shallow depths but increasingly higher penetration resistance at depths greater than 7 m – a phenomenon that is also common in offshore results. During extraction, the cone penetrometer gave a higher resistance profile than the full–flow penetrometers for much of the depth of interest. The Su profile measured directly from the vane shear tests falls within the Su profiles derived from the penetration resistances of the full–flow penetrometers, using a single bearing factor, N = 10.5 (the value originally suggested in the literature for a T–bar penetration test). Again, the cone penetrometer demonstrated diverging results, requiring two separate values for the cone factor, Nkt (10.5 initially increasing to 13 for depths below 10 m) in order to give Su similar to the vane shear tests. This highlights the possible variability of the cone factor with depth. Cyclic penetration and extraction tests were performed at specific depths for each fullflow penetrometer. These tests comprised displacement cycles of ±0.5 m about the relevant depth, recording the penetration and extraction resistances over five full cycles. The results may be used to derive the remoulded strength and sensitivity of the soil. Laboratory tests such as triaxial and simple shear tests were performed on ‘undisturbed’ tube samples retrieved from the same site to evaluate the in situ shear strengths in the laboratory. However, the resulting Su data were rather scattered, much of which may be attributed to variable sample quality due to the presence of frequent shell fragments and occasional silt lenses within the test samples. In general, N factors for the full–low penetrometers, back–calculated using Su values measured from the simple shear tests, fell mainly in a range between 9.7 and 12.8 (between 10.4 and 12.2 for the standard size T–bar (250 mm x 40 mm))

Das Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, die Auswirkungen verschiedener Bodennutzungssysteme auf ausgewählte physiko-chemische Bodeneigenschaften und pflanzenbauliche Parameter auf sandigen Böden auf den Dauerfeldversuchsflächen in Berlin-Dahlem und Dedelow zu untersuchen. Ein erster Arbeitsschwerpunkt am Standort Berlin-Dahlem bestand darin, die Wirkungen verschiedener Bodenbearbeitungstiefen (17 cm und 28 cm) in Abhängigkeit der drei Faktorstufen - mit und ohne Kalkdüngung, mit und ohne Stallmistdüngung, flache und tiefe Bodenbearbeitung - zu ermitteln. Im zweiten Arbeitsschwerpunkt wurden in einer fünffeldrigen Fruchtfolge am Standort Dedelow Vergleiche verschiedener Verfahren der konventionellen und konservierenden Bodenbearbeitung und deren Effekte untersucht. Die Durchdringungswiderstandmessungen in Berlin-Dahlem zeigten nach langjähriger Bodenbearbeitung höhere Bodenfestigkeitswerte in der tieferen Bodenbearbeitungsvariante als in der flachen Variante. Die wasserstabilen Aggregate in Berlin-Dahlem wiesen in der flachen Bodenbearbeitung höhere Werte auf. Die ermittelten Wasserspeicherkurven in Berlin-Dahlem zeigten in der flachen Bodenbearbeitungsvariante für die ausgewählten Parzellen in 10-15 cm Bodentiefe im Vergleich zu der tieferen Variante tendenziell höhere nutzbare Feldkapazitätswerte. In Dedelow zeigten die Wasserretentionskurven unter verschiedenen Bodenbearbeitungsverfahren unregelmäßige Streuungen auf. Die höchsten Gesamtkohlenstoffgehaltswerte wurden in der flachen Bodenbearbeitung unter dem Prüfglied „mit Kalk- und mit Stallmist“ gedüngten Parzellen erzielt. In Dedelow zeigten die Gesamtkohlenstoffgehalte zwischen konservierender und konventioneller Bodenbearbeitung in 10-15 cm Bodentiefe kaum Unterschiede. Der Einfluss von Düngung und Bodenbearbeitungstiefen auf den Kornertrag bei Hafer war mit einem Ertrag von 29,2 dt ha-1 am stärksten am Standort Dedelow in der tiefen Bodenbearbeitung unter dem Prüfglied „mit Kalk- und ohne Stallmistdüngung“. / On the basis of various long-term field trials it was the goal to investigate the influence of different tillage systems on soil physical, soil chemical and crop parameters on sandy loamy locations in Berlin-Dahlem and Dedelow. The first focus of the work in Berlin-Dahlem was to investigate the effects between different tillage depths (17 cm and 28 cm) and the selected factors “with and without liming”, “with and without manure fertilization” and “shallow and deep tillage”. The second focus was on a five-field crop rotation site in Dedelow to compare different methods of conventional and conservation tillage and their effects. The penetration resistance values in Berlin-Dahlem showed after long-time tillage in the deep soil tillage system higher compactions compared to shallow tillage systems. The soil aggregate stability values in Berlin-Dahlem showed in the shallow tillage higher values. The obtained soil water retention curves in Berlin-Dahlem showed an increase of the available water capacity for the selected plots in the shallow soil tillage system compared to the deep tillage system in the 10 - 15 cm soil depth. The soil water retention curves showed irregular variations under the different tillage systems in Dedelow. The highest total carbon content were observed in the shallow tillage system in the "with lime and with farmyard manure" treatments. In general, however, the total carbon content predominate nearly the same amounts in 10 - 15 cm soil depth in both conservation and conventional tillage systems in Dedelow. The influence of fertilization and tillage depth on grain yield in oats showed the maximum value as 29,2 dt ha-1 in the deep tillage system in the "with lime and without farmyard manure" treatments.

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