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Relationship between Menard EM and Young's E moduli for cohesionless soils

Conference Paper · September 2019

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 th
Prroceedings of the
e 18 Internation
nal Conference o
on Soil Mechanics and Geotechniical Engineering,, Paris 2013

Paralle
el session ISP 6

Relationsh
R hip betwee
en Menard EM and Yo
oung’s E Moduli forr cohesionless soils
Gabriel
G Sedra
an
In-Depth
I Geote
echnical Inc., Hamilton,
H Ontarrio, Canada
Roger
R A. Failmezger
In-situ
I Soil Tessting L.C., Lanccaster, Virginia,, USA
Andrew
A Dreviininkas
DownUnder
D Ge
eotechnical Ltd
d., Maple, Onta
ario, Canada

ABSTRACT:
A Pressuremeter testing (PMT) prrovides stress-sttrain data for both b pseudo-elastic and elasto--plastic ranges of soil
deformation.
d Thhe Menard moddulus EM calculaated as the slopee of the pseudo-eelastic portion of o the p vs. R curve,
c measures elastic
properties
p of thee soil which aree based on non--uniform stress aand strain fieldss. As such EM cannot directly be identified with w the
Young’s
Y moduluus of the soil, E.. The Menard’ss  parameter is often used to estimate E from the measured EM. Although practical,
this
t empirical appproach providees little insight into
i the interacttion between the PMT probe aand the surround ding soil. Thiss paper
explores
e back-caalculating EM off cohesionless sooils knowing vallues of E, a prioori. In this exerrcise, the behaviior of soils undeer PMT
testing
t conditionns is modeled ussing finite elemeent analysis (FEEA) assuming un niform values off E. FEA predicctions are then uused to
reconstruct
r presssuremeter p vs. R curves from which
w EM is backk-calculated. Inn a parametric appproach, the relaation between EM and E
is
i plotted for a raange of soil stifffness E values, and
a a range of vaalues of the in-situ horizontal strresses p0. A relaation between EM and E
for
f cohesionless soils is proposedd.

KEYWORDS:
K in
n-situ testing; prressuremeter; elaastic moduli; cohhesionless soils; finite element aanalysis; back–caalculation.

RÉSUMÉ
R : Le module pressioométrique Ménaard EM mesure des propriétés élastiques du sol qui se basennt sur des cham mps de
contraintes
c et dee déformations non-uniformes.
n Le paramètre  proposé par Ménard
M est souveent utilisé afin d’estimer
d le moddule de
Young
Y  à parttir du module pressiométrique
p EM. Bien que pratique, cette approche empiirique fournit peu p d’informatioons sur
l’interaction
l entrre la sonde presssiométrique et lel sol avoisinnannt. Cet article exxplore le rétrocaalcul de EM pourr des sols pulvéérulents
connaissant,
c modéliser par mééthode d’élémentts finis (FEA) lee comportement de sols
à prriori, les valeurs de E. Cet exerccice consiste à m
soumis
s à des esssais pressiométriiques en assumaant des valeurs uuniformes de . Les prédictions FEA sont alors utilsées pour traacer de
nouvelles
n courbees pressiométriquues p vs. R dessquelles EM est rrétrocalculé. Dan ns une approche paramétrique, laa relation entre EM et E
est
e tracée pour uneu gamme de vaaleurs de rigiditéé E, et pour une gamme de valeeurs de contraintes horizontales in i situ p0. Une rrelation
entre
e EM et E estt ainsi proposée pour des sols puulvérulents.

MOTS-CLES
M : essais
e in situ, preessiomètre, moddule élastique, sools pulvérulents, analyse par élém
ments finis, rétro
ocalcul.

1 INTRODUC
CTION pressuremmeter modulus E0 (Briaud 1992),, and is calculateed with
the follow
wing expression:
Loading
L condittions during pressuremeter testing (PMT))
generate
g non-unniform stress anda strain fieldds. This paperr
investigates
i the effects
e of non-unniform stress-strrain distributionss (1)
in
i the interpretattion of soil propeerties from PMT T testing.
Given that PMT stress-sttrain responsess provide soill
parameters
p relaated to in-situu horizontal stresses,
s elasticc
properties
p and strength
s propertties, this paper focuses on thee where p an nd R/R0 are thee pressure and thhe correspondingg radial
determining
d elastic moduli froom the pressuree-volume curvess strain recorded at the beeginning (subscrript 1) and at thhe end
obtained
o from a typical PMT tesst. (subscriptt 2) of the linearr portion of the PMT pressure-vvolume
The discussio ons presented here only considder soil behaviorr curve, resppectively. The P Poisson’s ratio is given by . Foor soils
under
u drained co onditions. As su
uch, the study is only applicablee under draained conditionss, (i.e., zero exxcess pore-pressure), a
to
t silt and sand deposits
d with goood drainage prop perties. Poisson’s ratio of 0.33 is typically useed, in which caase the
pressuremmeter modulus iss designated as the t Menard’s modulus
m
1.1
1 The pressu
uremeter modulu
us E0 EM (Baguuelin et al. 1978).
The
T analysis of stress and strainn changes in a soil s mass due too
PMT
P loading is based in the theeory of cavity ex xpansion, whichh 1.2 Youung’s modulus annd PMT testing
includes
i an infin nitely long cylin
nder expanding into an infinitee It has long
g been recognizeed that the Menaard’s modulus EM does
soil
s mass. Asssuming uniform m, isotropic, linnear-elastic soill not directlly represent the Y
Young’s moduluus E of the testedd soils.
behavior,
b the elaastic properties of
o the soil are reppresented by thee Menarrd and Rousseauu (as reported by
b Briaud 1992), noted
that usingg EM as the elaastic modulus ofo the soil resuulted in
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Proceedings of the 18 International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013

Parallel session ISP 6

predicted footing settlements, which are consistently larger than based on the assumption that the soil response is linear elastic,
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.

Values of the  parameter were determined empirically for

different type of soils, and for different states of compaction and
rheologies. Namely,  varies between ¼ and 1 (after Baguelin
et al. 1978).
Briaud (1992) further researched the issue and listed a
number of reasons contributing to the differences observed
between the measured EM and the elastic modulus E, namely:

 Modulus is measured over a rather large range of radial

strains;
 Tension may develop near borehole walls, which may
result in degradation of the average elastic modulus;
 Drilling and installation of the probe may cause soil
disturbance near the borehole wall;
 Expression (1) assumes an infinite long cylinder,
whereas PMT testing pressurizes a finite length of the
borehole, thereby introducing errors in the
determination of EM;
 PMT testing exerts a load pattern that lasts for several
minutes; however actual foundation loadings act for
much longer periods; Figure 1. Triaxial test response
 Soil anisotropy may be present, thereby the measured
horizontal moduli may be lower than vertical moduli
needed in settlement analyses.
1.3 Young’s modulus and the PMT reload modulus ER
These effects however cannot be easily quantified. Mair et al. (1987), as well as others (Hughes 1977), have argued
Therefore, to date, no correction framework has been developed that disturbances during probe installation render values of
to obtain better predictions of the Young’s modulus using PMT initial shear moduli (or elastic moduli) unreliable, and that
test results. unload-reload moduli are more preferable. Geotechnical
It is clear to the authors that all factors listed above practitioners have met with success in predicting quasi-elastic
influence, to a certain degree, the outcome on the inferred deformation of soil-structure systems using finite element
values of EM. However, it is their view that the generation of analysis with values of the PMT reload modulus ER (Baker
non-uniform stress-strain fields developing during PMT loading 2005). Typically, for cohesionless soils, the reload modulus is
has a major, more important, effect in the way the elastic on the order of three times that of the Menard modulus EM.
modulus EM is measured than those factors listed above. Based on the author’s practical experience, values of the reload
Strain hardening behavior of cohesionless soils results in modulus is often within the range of 2.0 to 4.0 times the value
stronger degradation of the elastic modulus of the soil at higher of EM.
stress/strain levels (Gomes Correia et al. 2004), even during the Using ER as an equivalent of the Young’s modulus however
pseudo-elastic range of soil deformations. Portions of the soil has no physical basis as the reload modulus is often measured
near the borehole walls during PMT testing are strained and from soil responses at stress and strains levels much higher than
stressed to a higher degree than portions of the soils away from those stresses expected to develop under foundation loading.
the wall, therefore values of the moduli are lower than those Furthermore, unload-reload cycles are usually completed after
developing far from the borehole walls. the yield pressure has been surpassed.
This concept can be visualized sooner in the response of a It should also be recognized that PMT loading imparts both
cohesionless soil sample tested under triaxial conditions, as deviatoric and volumetric stress, and some amount of
illustrated in Figure 1 in a simplified manner. When using a consolidation takes place during the test. Given the fact that
linear elastic-perfectly plastic model (bi-linear model), the soil stresses during unload-reload cycles are much higher than in-
response to triaxial loading is shown with the solid line. The situ stresses, it should be expected that at the end of the reload
actual response of the soil undergoing strain-hardening is cycle the tested soil has changed, and it has now a stiffer
illustrated with the dashed line. Whether we use a tangent or a behavior. This concept is supported by the fact that during
secant modulus, the actual soil response reflects the degradation PMT tests with multiple unload-reload cycles, the results show
of the elastic modulus at higher strain levels. an increase of the reload moduli. For instance, the authors have
The effects of strain-hardening have also been recognized observed PMT test results where, for dense sands, the reload
by Prévost (1975), Clarke (1995), Gomes Correia (2004), and modulus for the third cycle could be 25 % higher than that
others, as it pertains to the pseudo-elastic response of soil under associated with the initial cycle. For loose or less compact sands
PMT loading. the increase of reload moduli upon successive cycles is even
While PMT results reflect the actual behavior of the soil higher. This phenomenon has also been reported by Mair
including strain hardening, the interpretation of E0 and EM is

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(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 made to simplify the modeling of the particular aspect under
finite elements analyses. scrutiny.
In this study a series of assumptions and working hypotheses
1.4 Scope of present study are adopted with regard to the modeling the quasi-elastic aspect
of the soil response under PMT loading, prior to yielding.
The main goal of this study is to explore the possibility of These 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 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 Poison’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 represent 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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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 post-processing data 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.
for the determining 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 E50ref 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)

where p0 refers to the effective initial pressure (also known as

the contact pressure).
The failure ratio Rf = 0.9 adopted for this study is consistent
with a ductile type of failure typically exhibited by PMT test
responses in most soils, including clays.
The basic correlation data between E and EM, as generated
with the back-calculation FEA approach is listed in Table 1
below. The inferred values of the Menard’s  parameter are
also included in Table 1.
The relation between E and EM is shown in Figure 3. In this
Figure 2. Pressuremeter p-v responses from Plaxis modeling graph it can be observed that EM values associated with a p0
stress level lined up with an associated linear regression
The increased value of the interpreted EM stems from the fact coefficient of R2 = 1.00.
that the modeled PMT probe has a finite length with restrained

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Regression analyses completed on the zero-intercept and

slope values for each of the five distributions were further used
to condense (E-EM) data points into the following linearized
expression:
 
    (5)

with

 3.90  0.16    (6)

and

 0.80 0.59    (7)

As mentioned above, pa and p0 represent atmospheric and

initial effective horizontal stresses, respectively. Expression (5) Figure 3. EM and E correlation from parametric study
is dimensionally consistent, and either SI or Imperial units may
be used with the same listed coefficients.

4 MENARD’S  PARAMETER
Plaxis Parameters  Back‐calculation FE analyses  
Based on back-calculated values of EM, the corresponding
'ho  E50 ref  E   EM   p*L EM /p*L  EM /E
values of the predicted EM / E ratio are included in Table No. 1.
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.

Potts D.M. and Zdravković L. 1999. Finite element analysis in

In closing, given the nature of the numerical analysis of the
geotechnical engineering – Theory. Thomas Telford.
present study, the relation between E and EM , as suggested by
expression (5), is strictly hypothetical. The authors however Prévost J.-H and Hoek K. 1975. Analysis of pressuremeter in strain-
believe that if there exists a relation between E and EM, it would softening soil. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering Div. ASCE.
have a form similar to that of expression (5). 101 GT8.

Silvestri V. 2001. Interpretation of pressuremeter tests in sand.

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Canadian Geotechnical Journal 38, 1155-1165.
Silvestri V., Abou-Samra G. and Bravo-Jonard C. 2009. Effect of flow
The Authors would like to express a heartfelt Thank You to
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Mr. Louis Marcil of Roctest (Montreal, Canada), to Dr. Dieter
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F.E.Stolle of McMaster University (Dep. Of Civil Engineering,
Hamilton, Canada), and to Ms. Anne Bermingham of 2WA Schanz T. and Vermeer P.A. 1996. Angles of friction and dilatancy of
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