Skip to main content
Log in

Empirical Correlations with Standard Penetration Test (SPT)-N for Estimating Shear Wave Velocity Applicable to Any Region

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
International Journal of Geosynthetics and Ground Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Shear wave velocity is one of the most important parameters for determining dynamic soil properties as well as for site characterization. Though there are several field tests to measure the shear wave velocity (V s ) but these are not always feasible. Hence, it is preferable to measure V s indirectly through empirical equations correlating V s with SPT-N value. Although, there are a number of empirical equations developed but these are region specific and cannot be used for all regions. In this paper, an effort has been made to develop new common empirical equations (considering different types of soil) correlating V s and SPT-N value, based on the existing correlations available for different continents collected almost from all regions which will be applicable to any region of the world. Empirical equations have been selected for analysis purpose from 41 different authors published worldwide, where, 26 equations are proposed for all soil types, 25 for sand and 14 are for clay type soil. These equations are selected separately and statistical regression analyses have been carried out to develop new common correlations for each type of soil. The newly developed equations have shown best fit curves with a very high R 2 values, along with minimum variance. As a result, it could be concluded that these newly developed correlations would be very much useful for determining shear wave velocity from known SPT-N value applicable to any region.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Akin M, Kramer SL, Topal T (2010) Comparison of measured and estimated shear wave velocities in a seismically active area (Erbaa, Turkey). Fifth international conference on “Recent advances in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics, Paper No: 1.21a”, San Diego, California

  2. Anbazhagan P, Kumar A, Sitharam TG (2012) Seismic site classification and correlation between standard penetration test N value and shear wave velocity for Lucknow City in Indo-Gangetic Basin. Pure Appl Geophys 170(2013):299–318

    Google Scholar 

  3. Athanasopoulos GA (1995) Empirical correlations Vs-NSPT for soils of Greece: a comparative study of reliability. In: Cakmak AS (ed) Proceedings of the 7th International conference on soil dynamics and earthquake engineering (Chania, Crete). Computational Mechanics, Southampton, pp 19–36

    Google Scholar 

  4. BSSC (2004) NEHRP recommended provisions for seismic regulations for new buildings and other structures 2003. Edition part 1: Provisions Report no FEMA450 Building seismic safety council for the federal emergency management agency, Washington, DC, USA

  5. Chang-Guk S (2015) Determination of mean shear wave velocity to 30 m depth for site classification using shallow depth shear wave velocity profile in Korea. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 73:17–28

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Chatterjee S, Hadi SA (2015) Regression analysis by example. Wiley, New York

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Chien LK, Lin MC, Oh YN (2000) Shear wave velocity and SPT-N values of in-situ reclaimed soil in west Taiwan. Geotech Eng 31:63–77

    Google Scholar 

  8. Dikmen U (2009) Statistical correlations of shear wave velocity and penetration resistance for soils. J Geophys Eng 6(1):61–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Farrokhzad F, Choobbasti AJ (2016) Empirical correlations of shear wave velocity (Vs) and standard penetration resistance based on soil type in Babol City. Indian J Geo-Mar Sci 45:1566–1577

    Google Scholar 

  10. Fujiwara T (1972) Estimation of ground movements in actual destructive earthquakes. In: Proceedings of the 4th European symposium on earthquake engineering, London. pp 125–132

  11. Fumal TE, Tinsley JC (1985) Mapping shear wave velocities of near surface geological materials. In: Ziony TI (ed) Predicting areal limits of earthquake induced landsliding. In: Evaluation of earthquake hazards in the Los Angeles region—An earth science perspective, vol 1360. USGS Paper, Washington DC, pp 127–150

  12. Hammam AH, Eliwa M (2013) Comparison between results of dynamic & static moduli of soil determined by different methods. HBRC J 9:144–149

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hanumantharao C, Ramana GV (2008) Dynamic soil properties for microzonation of Delhi, India. J Earth Syst Sci 117(S2):719–730

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Hasancebi N, Ulusay R (2006) Empirical correlations between shear wave velocity and penetration resistance for ground shaking assessments. Bull Eng Geol Environ 66:203–213

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Imai T (1977) P- and S-wave velocities of the ground in Japan. In: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on soil mechanics and foundation engineering, vol 2. pp 127–132

  16. Imai T, Fumoto H, Yokota K (1975) The relation of mechanical properties of soil to P and S wave velocities in Japan. In: Proceedings of the 4th Japan earthquake engineering symposium. pp 89–96

  17. Imai T, Tonouchi K (1982) Correlation of N-value with S-wave velocity and shear modulus. In: Proceedings of the 2nd European symposium on penetration testing. pp 57–72

  18. Imai T, Yoshimura Y (1970) Elastic wave velocity and soil properties in soft soil. Tsuchito-Kiso 18(1):17–22 (in Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Iyisan R (1996) Correlations between shear wave velocity and in-situ penetration test results. Digest 96:371–374

    Google Scholar 

  20. Jafari MK, Asghari A, Rahmani I (1997) Empirical correlation between shear wave velocity (Vs) and SPT-N value for south of Tehran soils. In: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on civil engineering, Tehran, Iran. (in Persian)

  21. James G, Witten D, Hastie T, Tibshirani R (2013) An introduction to statistical learning, vol 112. Springer, New York

    Book  MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. Japan Road Association (1980) Specification for highway bridges, part IV, seismic design. Japan Road Association, Tokyo (Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Jinan Z (1987) Correlation between seismic wave velocity and the number of blow of SPT and depth. In: Selected papers from the Chinese journal of geotechnical engineering. ASCE, New York, pp 92–100

    Google Scholar 

  24. Kalteziotis N, Sabatakakis N, Vassiliou J (1992) Evaluation of dynamic characteristics of Greek soil formations. In: Second Hellenic conference on geotechnical engineering, vol 2. pp 239–246 (in Greek)

  25. Kanai K (1966) Conf. on cone penetrometer the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement (Ankara, Turkey) (presented by Y Sakai 1968)

  26. Kayabali K (1996) Soil liquefaction evaluation using shear wave velocity. Eng Geol 44(1):121–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Kiku H, Yoshida N, Yasuda S, Irisawa T, Nakazawa H, Shimizu Y, Ansal A, Erkan A (2001) In-situ penetration tests and soil profiling in Adapazari, Turkey. In: Proceedings of the ICSMGE/TC4 satellite conference on lessons learned from recent strong earthquakes. pp 259–265

  28. Kramer SL (1996) Geotechnical earthquake engineering. Pearson Education Ptd Ltd Reprinted 2003, Delhi

    Google Scholar 

  29. Lee CT, Tsai BR (2008) Mapping Vs30 in Taiwan. Terr Atmos Oceanic Sci 19(6):671–682

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Lee SHH (1990) Analysis of the multicollinearity of regression equations of shear wave velocities. Soils Found 32(1):205–214

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  31. Ohba S, Toriuma I (1970) Dynamic response characteristics of Osaka Plain. In: Proceedings of the annual meeting AIJ (in Japanese)

  32. Ohsaki Y, Iwasaki R (1973) On dynamic shear moduli and Poisson’s ratio of soil deposits. Soil Found 13:61–73

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Ohta T, Hara A, Niwa M, Sakano T (1972) Elastic shear moduli as estimated from N-value. In: Proceedings of the 7th annual convention of Japan society of soil mechanics and foundation engineering. pp. 265–268

  34. Ohta Y, Goto N (1978) Empirical shear wave velocity equations in terms of characteristic soil indexes. Earthq Eng Struct Dyn 6:167–187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Okamoto T, Kokusho T, Yoshida Y, Kusuonoki K (1989) Comparison of surface versus subsurface wave source for P–S logging in sand layer. In: Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of JSCE, vol 3. pp 996–997 (in Japanese)

  36. Pitilakis KD, Anastasiadis A, Raptakis D (1992) Field and laboratory determination of dynamic properties of natural soil deposits. In: Proceedings of 10th world conference on earthquake engineering, Rotterdam. pp 1275–1280

  37. Pitilakis K, Raptakis D, Lontzetidis KT, Vassilikou T, Jongmans D (1999) Geotechnical and geophysical description of Euro Seistests using field and laboratory tests and moderate strong ground motions. J Earthq Eng 3:381–409

    Google Scholar 

  38. Raptakis DG, Anastasiadis SAJ, Pitilakis K D, Lontzetidis KS (1995) Shear wave velocities and damping of Greek natural soils. In: Proceedings of 10th European conference on earthquake engineering, Vienna. pp 477–482

  39. Seed HB, Idriss IM (1981) Evaluation of liquefaction potential sand deposits based on observation of performance in previous earthquakes. In: ASCE National Convention (MO). pp 81–544

  40. Seed HB, Idriss IM, Arango I (1983) Evaluation of liquefaction potential using field performance data. J Geotech Eng 109:458–482

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Shibata T (1970) Analysis of liquefaction of saturated sand during cyclic loading. Disaster Prev Res Inst Bull 13:563–570

    Google Scholar 

  42. Sil A, Sitharam TG (2014) Dynamic site characterization and correlation of shear wave velocity with standard penetration test ‘N’ values for the city of Agartala, Tripura state, India. Pure Appl Geophys 171:1859–1876

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Sisman H (1995) The relation between seismic wave velocities and SPT pressuremeter tests. MSc Thesis Ankara University (in Turkish)

  44. Sitharam TG, Anbazhagan P (2008) Seismic Microzonation: principles practices and experiments. Electron J Geotech Eng Spec Vol Bouquet 08:1–61

    Google Scholar 

  45. Strelec S, Stanko D, Gazdek M (2016) Empirical correlation between the shear-wave velocity and the dynamic probing heavy test: case study, Varaždin, Croatia. Acta Geotech Slov 13(1):3–15

    Google Scholar 

  46. Sykora DE, Stokoe KH (1983) Correlations of in-situ measurements in sands of shear wave velocity. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 20:125–136

    Google Scholar 

  47. Tonouchi K, Sakayama T, Imai T (1983) S wave velocity in the ground and the damping factor. Bull Int Assoc Eng Geol 26:327–333

    Google Scholar 

  48. Tsiambaos G, Sabatakakis N (2011) Empirical estimation of shear wave velocity from in situ tests on soil formations in Greece. Bull Eng Geol Environ 70:291–297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Uma Maheswari R, A Boominathan, G R Dodagoudar (2010) Use of surface waves in statistical correlations of shear wave velocity and penetration resistance of Chennai soils. Geotech Geol Eng 28(2):119–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Yokota K, Imai T, Konno M (1991) Dynamic deformation characteristics of soils determined by laboratory tests. OYO Tec Rep 3:13

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arjun Sil.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Sil, A., Haloi, J. Empirical Correlations with Standard Penetration Test (SPT)-N for Estimating Shear Wave Velocity Applicable to Any Region. Int. J. of Geosynth. and Ground Eng. 3, 22 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40891-017-0099-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40891-017-0099-1

Keywords

Navigation