Evaluation on Bearing Capacity of Dredging Ground by Field Loading Test

ABSTRACT Sea gives us a lot of benefits and one of them is a role of transporting goods easily by ship. Accordingly the industrial area or the container yard is constructed either on the low sea or near the sea. Sea dredging ground is made by pumping them using dredge pump to the inside of embankment after dredging undersea soils. The dredging ground after pumping is in the slurry state but as time goes, consolidation by the own weight happens and evaporation happens at the surface of dredging ground. The evaporation causes the crest layer in the upper side of dredging ground. Under the crest layer there is still a soil of slurry state which has just little bearing resistance. This kind of characteristics makes it difficult to get a exact bearing capacity using the equations proposed until now. In this study we have performed simultaneously both the field loading tests and the cone penetration tests on the sea dredging ground. From the result of field tests, new experimental equation for the ultimate bearing capacity has been proposed. If we use the new equation, it is believed that some design of sea dredging ground could be more accurate.