Double-Ring Infiltrometer for <i>In-Situ</i>Permeability Determination of Dam Material

Three types of natural soils are studied in this paper: 1) a postglacial silt, 2) a glacial till, and 3) a postglacial sand. The former two are soils from embankment dam sites in Sweden, and the latter is a soil from a natural deposit situated in the Swedish east coastal region. In situ Double-ring infiltrometer (DRI) tests are compared with laboratory constant-head permeability determinations. This study shows that the DRI tests conducted on sandy-silty soils are within sufficient range to the laboratory results, to suggest that in situ near-saturated infiltration capacity may be used as a field estimate of hydraulic conductivity (permeability) for this range of soils. In situ infiltrometer testing may be the better alternative when there is difficulty in achieving representative field conditions in a laboratory setting, e.g., for widely graded soils such as glacial tills.

On the Kenney-Lau Approach to Internal Stability Evaluation of Soils

A commonly used approach to evaluating the potential for internal instability in soils is that of Kenney and Lau. This method involves a shape analysis of the grain size curve over a length of the soil’s finer part. A soil that is internally unstable has a particle size distribution with a finer fraction less than the coarser fraction;therefore, the coarser fraction makes up the primary fabric of the material. Thus, the fine-grained particles are loose (non-structural) in between fixed (structural) coarser grains, and these loose fine particles are permitted to migrate through the constrictions of the fabric of the coarser fraction. This paper discusses the evolution of the Kenney-Lau method and its boundary relations, and furthermore, a discussion on adaptations of the method, which touches on field experience and engineering practice, is given.

Sieving Error from Dry-Separating Silt-Sand-Gravel Soils

The dry-separation method is an alternative to the wet-preparation in the current European Standard for the determination of particle size distributions by the sieving of soils. Due to the risk of error, dry-separation is cautioned against in the standard;however, there is no additional guidance as to when it is unsuitable nor for the magnitude of error that it may introduce. This study investigates the dry-separation method as an alternative by comparing with the conventional method of Wet-preparation in terms of particle-size distributions of eight cohesionless sand-gravel soils with varying amounts of nonplastic fines. The findings indicate a gradually increasing sieving error for fractions at minus 0.5 mm with the amount of fines in the soil, and depending on the fines content of the soil, dry-separation introduced errors upwards of 45% in silt-sand-gravel soils. An empirical best-fit formula is proposed for the estimation of the error using the dry-preparation method on this type of soil. Furthermore, to avoid sieving errors, the results suggest that the dry-separation method should not be used for silt-sand-gravel soils exceeding 2% silt size fractions.

Applying Empirical Methods to Assess the Internal Stability of Embankment Dam Cores of Glacial Till

This paper presents a database of glacial till gradations that are compiled from laboratory internal stability tests from the literature and from core soils of existing dams, some of which have experienced internal erosion. The potential internal instability of these gradations is assessed using empirical methods. Two approaches of evaluation are used: the Kenney-Lau method, which analyzes the shape of the gradation curve;and the Burenkova method, which uses factors of uniformity of the slope of the gradation. Although they include some uncertainties in terms of soils with fines, these methods, which are primarily developed from laboratory studies of sand and gravels, are used in engineering practice to evaluate widely graded soils that include fines, such as glacial tills. This study evaluates the glacial till gradations of the database using these approaches and discusses their applicability and relative predictive success. This study indicates that both the Kenney-Lau method and the Burenkova method have merit, but a closer analysis indicates that the Kenney-Lau approach has relatively better predictive ability based on the glacial till gradations analyzed in this study.