Report on the Design Feasibility of a Highway

Report On The Design Feasibility Of A Highway 1
REPORT ON THE DESIGN FEASIBILITY OF A HIGHWAY
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Executive summary
This report details the assessment of soil on a site, located in England to determine the
feasibility of the highway construction. The major tests that are conducted to determine the
soil geological feasibility include Triaxial tests at four confining pressures; as well as direct
shear tests at four normal stresses. From the results obtained, the soil samples validated the
possibility of these data being adopted by the British Geotechnical Association (BGA)
company. Nonetheless, there was an error which was obtained; and which have significantly
affected the results. The possible sources of the errors were the assumptions made while
conducting the sampling, human errors from reading the various values of the experiment, as
well as restrictions from the equipment’s which have been used in conducting the experiment.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary...................................................................................................................2
Introduction...............................................................................................................................4
Aims.......................................................................................................................................4
Soil samples...........................................................................................................................4
Test carried out......................................................................................................................4
Results obtained........................................................................................................................6
Discussion..................................................................................................................................6
Triaxial tests...........................................................................................................................6
Direct shear stress.................................................................................................................7
Limitations of the testing, and how the sources of errors affected the results..................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
ASSIGNMENT 2.........................................................................................................................10
References...............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Soil forms the structural foundation for any form of construction work, hence
conducting a soil testing is of great significance, and failure to appropriately conduct the
testing potentially introduces high levels of safety and financial risks later on (Ahmadi-
Naghadeh and Toker, 2018). As per cobnuts, soil testing is the Prior to beginning any
conducting of a wide soil analysis with aims of determining the suitability of the soil for the
construction project with vital for effective planning and informed decision making (Clay et
al., 2017). Hence, before beginning any construction project, it is necessary to determine the
type, nature and properties of soil in the underlying site. This task will thus involve
conducting soil testing for the construction of a highway in England. It will achieve the task
through the below aims
Aims
 To determine the feasibility of a highway project development at the sit
 To carry out certain soil testing on behalf of the British Geotechnical Association (BGA)
in support of the project in relation to the preliminary slope analysis at the site
 To determine the shear strength properties of both fine-grained and coarse-grained soil
samples extracted from the boreholes in various locations of the site
Soil samples
 Fine-grained – these are soil particles having a diameter, which is falling between 75
microns and two microns and will easily allow particles with 50% or more material to
pass through a sieve number 200 (Ding and Loehr, 2019).
 Coarse-grained soil samples- these are soil sample with a diameter, which is more
than 4.75 millimetres with 50% or less material passing through a sieve, number 200
(Esmaeili-Falak et al., 2019).
Test carried out
Two tests were conducted, as described below;

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 Triaxial tests at four confining pressures; - this testing entails confinement of a rock
specimen or cylindrical soil sample in a pressurised cell for purposes of simulating a
stress condition after which the shear to failure, to come up with the shear strength
properties of the soil sample. The diagram below demonstrates the process
(Friedmann et al., 2017)
Figure 1: triaxial tests apparatus
 Direct shear tests at four normal stresses- this entails testing square prism of soil that
is restrained laterally and sheared along horizontally mechanical plane while under
pressure that is applied along a plane perpendicular to the shearing plane. Below is a
set up of the experiment (Gallage and Uchimura, 2016)

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Figure 2: Direct shear tests apparatus
Results obtained
The results have been detailed in the attached excel sheet.
Figure 3: triaxial tests results-100, KPa
Figure 4: direct shear tests results-150, KPa

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Discussion
Triaxial tests
The triaxial tests are versatile in the sense that the evaluation of the shear strength can
be done under both the extension and compression loading conditions. In the schematic
compression tests demonstrated above in figure 3, the axial stress seems to be greater than the
confining stress. A simulation of the confining pressures can be done by determination of
lateral pressure below the ground surface (Karimi et al., 2017) (Kaul et al., 2017). It is
significant to acknowledge that the confining pressures acts like the whole sample and is the
same as the axial stress prior to the application of the axial stress increment. The compression
or rather the increase in the axial stress results into the failure of the sample until shearing
occurs (Khan et al., 2017) (Lark et al., 2017). In the case of an extension test, the confining
pressures are increased, while maintaining the axial stress at a constant value.
The application of the axial load is don with the closure of the drainage lines. This
results in the continual development of extra water pressure pores. These pressures are
determined during the test in order to obtain effective stress strength as well as the total stress
(Maleksaeedi et al., 2017) (Marek and Richardson, 2020). The failures are a result of the
shear stresses, which are induced by the axial load in the specimen. While conducting the
test, the minor principles of stress are taken to be the confining pressure that acts in a uniform
manner over the whole specimen (Mundalamo, 2019). By extension, there is no shear stress,
which was developed along the specimen circumference since the assumption is that there is
no friction in the interface between the membrane isolating it from the fluid or the soil.
Further, the action applied axial load results into normal stress to act on the bottom
section as well as the top section of the specimen (Punetha et al., 2017). Due to these
boundary stress conditions, the specimen can shear on any plane, as long as it is controlled by
the inherent shear strength as well as the minor principal stress.

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Direct shear stress
In this technique, a record of the magnitude of the shear stress was noted as a function
of the shear displacement as well as the change in the thickness of the soil sample. In this test,
however, the confining pressure could not be controlled. As from the results obtained, the
orientations of the minor and major principal stress were not apparent. This is due to the
direct shear device which occurred at the horizontal plane (Ramsey, 2017). The values
obtained in the different locations, however, varies sharply and thus these relations should be
applied with a lot of caution. The results can, however, be utilized in the determination of the
preliminary estimates of the design.
These results which have been obtained, when compared to other results which have
been consolidated by other researchers can be duly acceptable. However, there are slight
variations which are expected with any experimental setup, with a limit of error. Overall, the
company can use the findings from this study for practical application purposes as the
deviations obtained were within the practical acceptable limits
Limitations of the testing, and how the sources of errors
affected the results
There are is a discrepancy between the values and the referenced values. The
implication is that there are likely sources of errors that might have led to this. Due to the fact
that the experiment was not actually accomplished, and instead only data was provided, it is
not possible to determine at which point during the experiment an error may have taken place
that would yield the error mentioned above (Sauder et al., 2019). Additionally, an assumption
can be made that there were restrictions within the measuring instruments that led to the
variations in the values, as well as human errors emanating from incorrect positioning while
taking the measurements. These errors have significantly affected the entire project, but then
the errors can be rectified to make the results reliable. To improve on the reliability of the
results obtained, some actions can be taken including

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The soil samples need not be disturbed to ensure – when the soil samples are
disturbed, the physical properties, as well as the chemical properties, get altered,
making it possible to obtain reliable results (Sharma et al., 2017).
Sampling should be done frequently to take into consideration the weather patterns o
within the site- the site conditions cannot be determined by just one sampling
occasion. The soil sampling and testing should consider the fact that soils behave
differently in various weather conditions, and thus, multiple sampling should be done
on different occasions to generate reliable results (Zhang et al., 2019).
Care has to be observed while handling the soil samples- while handling soil samples,
great care needs to be taken since any slight mistake will ruin the entire expected
results. The tools which are used to collect as well as test the various samples of soil
should be accurate and modern, so as to promote reliability in the obtained results.
Conclusion
Triaxial compression method, as well as direct shear tests, have been applied to test
the suitability and feasibility of a highway project development at the site. Fine-grained and
coarse-grained soil samples were extracted from the boreholes in various locations of the site
upon which the test was carried out on the soil samples. from this experiments, there are
important steps which are required to utilise these techniques for highway assessment
including; equipment of the laboratory with the triaxial and direct shear apparatus, the soil
samples need not be disturbed to ensure reliability. By extension, sampling should be done
frequently to take into consideration the weather patterns o within the site, and finally, care
has to be observed while handling the soil samples.
From the results obtained; it is quite noticed that the aims of the research. However,
few errors were realised while comparing the results, and hence affected the overall outcome.

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Nonetheless, if the above measures are taken, then it becomes possible to ensure that the
reliability of the results obtained is enhanced.

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ASIGNMENT 2

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References
Ahmadi-Naghadeh, R. and Toker, N.K., 2018. A new isotropic specimen preparation method
from slurry for both saturated and unsaturated triaxial testing of a low-plasticity
silt. Geotechnical Testing Journal, 42(4), pp.854-879.
Clay, D.E., Robinson, C. and DeSutter, T.M., 2017. Soil Sampling and Understanding Soil
Test Results for Precision Farming. Practical Mathematics for Precision Farming, pp.105-
121.
Ding, D. and Loehr, J.E., 2019. Variability and Bias in Undrained Shear Strength from
Different Sampling and Testing Methods. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental
Engineering, 145(10), p.04019082.
Esmaeili-Falak, M., Katebi, H., Vadiati, M. and Adamowski, J., 2019. Predicting Triaxial
Compressive Strength and Young’s Modulus of Frozen Sand Using Artificial Intelligence
Methods. Journal of Cold Regions Engineering, 33(3), p.04019007.
Friedmann, H., Baumgartner, A., Bernreiter, M., Gräser, J., Gruber, V., Kabrt, F., Kaineder,
H., Maringer, F.J., Ringer, W., Seidel, C. and Wurm, G., 2017. Indoor radon, geogenic radon
surrogates and geology–Investigations on their correlation. Journal of environmental
radioactivity, 166, pp.382-389.
Gallage, C. and Uchimura, T., 2016. Direct shear testing on unsaturated silty soils to
investigate the effects of drying and wetting on shear strength parameters at low
suction. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 142(3), p.04015081.
Karimi, A., Haghnia, G.H., Ayoubi, S. and Safari, T., 2017. Impacts of geology and land use
on magnetic susceptibility and selected heavy metals in surface soils of Mashhad plain,
northeastern Iran. Journal of Applied Geophysics, 138, pp.127-134.
Kaul, T.M., Grafton, M.C.E., Hedley, M.J. and Yule, I.J., 2017. Understanding soil
phosphorus variability with depth for the improvement of current soil sampling methods.
Khan, M.S., Hossain, S., Ahmed, A. and Faysal, M., 2017. Investigation of a shallow slope
failure on expansive clay in Texas. Engineering Geology, 219, pp.118-129.
Lark, R.M., Hamilton, E.M., Kaninga, B., Maseka, K.K., Mutondo, M., Sakala, G.M. and
Watts, M.J., 2017. Nested sampling and spatial analysis for reconnaissance investigations of
soil: an example from agricultural land near mine tailings in Zambia. European Journal of
Soil Science, 68(5), pp.605-620.