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Webmaster: Stansfeld, LLC. |
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JULY 18, 2001 - "Geostatistics"
Speaker: Dr. Mike O'Neill, P.E.
At
the FPA meeting this evening, Dr. Mike O'Neill, P.E., Professor of Civil
Engineering at UH gave a very interesting talk on Geostatistics. He studied
samples at the UH main campus and demonstrated that by using statistics,
you can theoretically obtain more accurate soil data with fewer samples.
By computing a Coefficient of Variation (COV) he showed that you could
reduce the safety factor normally used in geotechnical recommendations
and therefore save money in the design. For example, for the 11 piles
driven to 45 feet at his UH test site, Mike found the COV was only 0.084
based on measured pile capacities.
Mike
used a cone penetrometer to measure continuous strength values of
the soil in-situ in his varies boreholes. This was necessary he said
because retrieving samples and doing unconfined compression testing
would have been a statistical nightmare. Mike agreed the cone penetrometer
test (CPT) was too expensive to use for normal geotechnical work in
the Houston residential market but he highly recommended that it be
used in forensic assessments where bearing capacity failures are suspected.
Mike, thanks for your presentation.