ABSTRACT
Understanding the effect of soil cementation on cone measurements is important for the identification of naturally cemented soil deposits and for the verification of soil improvement achieved by various forms of artificial cementation, including bio-cementation. This paper presents the results of an effort to connect cone tip resistances with fundamental, constitutive level, bio-cementation-induced changes in soil behavior. To this end, a direct axisymmetric cone penetration model using the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model and grid rezoning and remapping algorithms is used to model cone penetration in bio-cemented sands. By connecting the results of cone penetration simulations in a Mohr-Coulomb material to real data and established relationships, this work will guide selection of equivalent strength properties of these challenging materials. More specifically, the apparent cohesion, peak friction angle, dilation angle, and small-strain shear modulus within the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model are varied parametrically across a reasonable range of parameter values informed by past laboratory, bench-scale, and centrifuge tests. Results show that cone penetration resistance in bio-cemented sands is mostly influenced by the interconnected apparent cohesion and the small-strain shear modulus, while other parameters play a secondary role.
