Soil Characterization in Super Soft, Sensitive Soils of Urmiyeh Lake

In the early 1980΄s the Urmiyeh Causeway was constructed at the Urmiyeh Lake’s narrowest part to connect the eastern part of Iran to the western area and Europe. Geotechnical investigations carried out the construction of associated 1260 m length Causeway Bridge. For design and analysis of 400 driven pipe piles, piezocone has been considered as a major tool and were performed in twelve locations along the bridge route to depths of 100 m below the lakebed. Soils encountered include super soft and sensitive gray to dark gray and somewhere yellowish deposits known as ‘Tabriz Marl.’ which is visually classified as a high liquid limit silt and clay. This paper evaluates CPTu records presented on two CPTu soil classification methods. Results indicate that for soft sensitive deposits the mobilized pore pressure can be realized as a valuable parameter for soil behavior interpretation

Keywords:

Urmiyeh Lake , CPTu , Soil profiling , Sensitivity , Pore pressure