Abstract
The stiffness of a ground mass is a useful parameter to understand its mechanical behaviour under service. Despite the advantage provided by the knowledge of the ground stiffness, this parameter was seldom determined in the past, because it required elaborated in situ tests. At present, the stiffness can be easily determined with a soil stiffness gauge (SSG) that is a light and user-friendly equipment. The fast measurement and the good usability of the SSG are great advantages, together with the ability to compute the stiffness modulus of the ground assuming a Poisson’s ratio. Based on a case study of a deteriorated pavement of a bus park the contribution of the SSG to the characterization of embankments and pavement layers is presented. The field and laboratory data demonstrated that the low stiffness modulus resulted from low quality embankment materials, reduced pavement thickness and deficient drainage of the pavement foundation.
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Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the Portuguese Government through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the research project PEst-OE/CTE/UI0073/2011 of the Geosciences Center. The support of Instituto Pedro Nunes during the field work is acknowledge. The permission to publish the data is acknowledge to the company Encobarra, Engenharia e Construções, S.A.
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Quinta-Ferreira, M. (2015). Ground Stiffness Evaluation Using the Soil Stiffness Gauge (SSG). In: Lollino, G., et al. Engineering Geology for Society and Territory - Volume 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09060-3_42
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09060-3_42
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