ABSTRACT

A comprehensive field campaign was carried out on an aged, dense, over-consolidated sand in Cuxhaven, Germany. CPTs along with a suite of additional in-situ tests, including DMTs, PLTs, shear wave velocity measurements (SDMT and MASW), nuclear densometer, manual drive-in cylinder, temperature, suction and volumetric water content testing were performed on a clean sand to a depth of about four meters. Aim of this field-testing program was to characterize in-situ a clean North-Sea sand and by doing so overcome calibration chamber effects (like reconstitution, ageing, and imposed boundary conditions). The field campaign forms part of an effort for the determination of in-situ stress history as well as engineering strength and stiffness properties within the ‘low’ stress regime (< 50 kPa vertical effective stresses). Details of the field results together with an assessment of OCR and K0 values are introductory presented in this paper. The background of this study is the soil characterisation at ‘shallow depths’ for subsea structures such as suction buckets, cables, pipelines, satellites and light gravity base structures.