ABSTRACT
Fines content is a crucial factor affecting the liquefaction resistance of soils within the frame of the CPT-based cyclic stress ratio approach. In contrast to highly susceptible sands and silty sands, on one hand, and non-liquefiable clays, on the other hand, the proper identification and classification of silts is still an unresolved issue. Several empirical equations have been proposed to correlate fines content with common CPT soil behavior indices. In the frame of a site-specific study comprising pairs of CPT soundings and adjacent exploration borings, gradation characteristics of retrieved soil samples are combined with the respective values of common soil behavior indices inferred from the CPT logs to examine available predictive equations and calibrate a new hyperbolic equation. The investigation confirms the large scatter in the data and the inherent difficulty in establishing a robust correlation.
