Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the

case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers Civil Engineering Special Issue 166 November 2013 Issue CE6 Pages 3643 http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/cien.13.00008 Paper 130008 Received 08/02/2013 Accepted 15/07/2013 Keywords: field testing & monitoring/geotechnical engineering/grouting ICE Publishing: All rights reserved

proceedings

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park
1

Mario Riccio DSc Researcher, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Magnos Baroni MSc Professor, Federal University of Pampa, Brazil

Marcio Almeida PhD, MICE Professor, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Much of Brazils massive infrastructure programme is having to be built on the very soft soils found along the countrys coastline. Not least are venues and infrastructure required for the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in the citys Barra da Tijuca district, where soft soils can be over 20m deep. One of these, the 13ha Athletes Park, is already successfully completed. This paper presents and discusses the results of various in situ and laboratory tests that were carried out to assess the soil properties at the site. It then describes how the ground was substantially improved with a recent technique developed in Brazil called deep radial consolidation.

1. Introduction
High demand for infrastructure works exists in Brazil at present because of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Much of the construction work, including the Olympic Park (Figure 1), will be in the Barra da Tijuca district on the west side of

Rio de Janeiro. The soft clay deposits found in this region are highly compressible, with values of compression ratio of approximately 05. The design strength of the top clay layer can be as low as 3kPa with correspondingly high values of water content of around 900% in the top layers (Almeida et al., 2008a). These types of soils may be defined as extremely soft soils (Sandroni and Consoli, 2010), with standard

Figure 1. The Rio 2016 Olympic Park is located on soft soils in Barra da Tijuca district in the western part of the city (Comit Organizador dos Jogos Olmpicos e Paralmpicos Rio 2016)

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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

Pennsula

Parameter Athletics Park Met. Centerb Sesc/ Senaca Panela Panc

Deposit Mximo Outeiro Crespo Netod Map Lifee

Water content:f % Liquid index: % Plasticity index: % Clay: % Bulk weight: kN/m Compression ratio Vertical coefficient of consolidation:g 108m/s Void ratio Undrained strength: kPa Cone factorh
a b c

72500 70450 47250 2880 12.5 0.29 0.52 0.1780 2.011.1 2.011.2 7.514.5

57789 67610 47497 660 1016.9 0.20.6 0.01819 1.412.4 4.521.9 415

126488 121312 80192 2654 9.813.4 0.40 0.84 0.68.8 3.38.2 3.038 4.016
d e f

30295 120140 31244 3351 11.4 18.5 0.33 2.0 0.86.6 1.03.5 16

116600 100370 120250 32 11.6 12.5 0.36 0.50 0.41.2 4.87.6 5.023 4.09

61294 5293 100300 2371 1012.7 0.35 0.79 0.915 4.03 12.37 4.029 6.515

75119 118133 97105 3265 13.5 15.7 0.25 0.68 2.149 1.83.01 741(4)
g h

13.7 20.2 510 11

72496 89172 42160 1449 1112.4 0.27 0.46 0.070.6 3.815.0 3.019 5.013

114895 86636 59405 1560 9.214.0 0.22 0.49 0.33.3 3.015.1 4.018 4.016

721200 88218 47133 1960 10.9 14.2 0.27 0.38 1.36.3 2.011.6 2.019 5.014.5

236 10.9 14.9 0.11 0.38 0.66.3 1.011.6 219 514.5

Almeida et al. (2002). Baroni (2010). Macedo et al. (2006) and Sandroni and Deotti (2008).

Crespo Neto (2004). Almeida et al. (2008b). Soft clay and peat.

Values from piezocone and consolidation tests at normally consolidated range, corrected for vertical flow. Cone factor obtained by vane-piezocone correlations at the site.

Table 1. Geotechnical properties of the soft clay encountered in various sites in western Rio de Janeiro (adapted from Almeida et al. (2008a))

2. Rio de Janeiros soft clays

Lacerda and Almeida (1995) have carried out a series of geotechnical site investigations since the mid-1990s on soft clay deposits on the west side of Rio de Janeiro, mainly at Barra da Tijuca and Recreio districts, totalling approximately 74km. In general the soils of the west side of Rio de Janeiro present a superficial peat layer varying from 1m to 4m in depth with about 5060% organic matter. They are therefore very compressible and settlements can be quite large. The soft soil thickness varies in general from 0 to 22m but one 28m thick deposit below the peat layer was found in the Recreio district (Almeida et al., 2008b). Peat has been found in the top layers of most of the investigated sites. The water table is quite shallow, typically about 05m and, at the majority of sites, the soil beneath the soft deposit is sand with gravel with thickness varying from 2 to 6m. It is very common in the west Rio sites for the soil to have high initial water content for peat (around 1200%) and soft clay (65500%) and

Depth: m

penetration test number below 1, undrained strength less than 12kPa and point resistance under 200kPa. This paper describes the soil properties and geotechnical profiles encountered during the civil works for the Athletes Park next to the Olympic Village. It reports on the solutions used to overcome the problems of short construction time, high compressibility and very low soil strength. A new ground improvement technique called deep radial consolidation is described and illustrated using the example of the Athletes Park. Deep radial consolidation is a technique consisting in mortar injection in the form of columns in parallel with vertical drainage to aid consolidation. The performance was evaluated by means of field monitoring to assess the settlement using settlement plates, and the improvement of the soft soil through measurements provided by pressuremeter tests.

quite low undrained strength. The specific weight might be quite low, typically 115kN/m, and the specific gravity of soil particles might also be quite low (244264) as a result of the high organic matter. Figure 2 shows the typical profiles found in these sites and Table 1 summarises the typical properties of the clay encountered in the Barra da Tijuca and Recreio districts. To supply the necessary parameters for design, the peat and soft soil of the area needed to be analysed using piezocone data as well as water content data measured using standard penetration test samples; these are quite useful for better defining the soil layering.
Barra da Tijuca Fill Peat Soft clay Medium clay Recreio Sand

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

.C C o en F et und ter oi . C o) o e Pa n vu te n r P a) A th an e le tic la sP ar k

ap

4) Li M fe ax im o

ro

Pa

ul

ns

ut

/S E

ni

SE

rr

(A rr

(A

Figure 2. Typical soil profiles of sites in the Barra da Tijuca and Recreio districts (adapted from Almeida et al. (2008a))

Cr

es

po

et o

SC

oi

et

Pe

(2

00

ei

Pa

Pal

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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

engineering practice in Brazil. The results of the tests, as well as the results of the index tests performed in soft clay deposits with peat presence, are discussed in this paper. 3.1 Standard penetration tests As a part of geotechnical preliminary investigation a set of 62 standard penetration tests was performed at the Athletes Park. Figure 4 shows the profiles of tests 27 and 28, which are typical of the site. These results were used to obtain same-thickness curves of the soft clay and Figure 5 shows the soft soil thickness contours at 1m intervals. As can be seen in Figure 4, the standard penetration test (SPT) profiles show soft soil from the surface (0m) to a depth of 10m. Below the soft soil layer the profile presents a sand layer in which the SPT values increase to 40. Thus, a strong layer is observed at the bottom of the profile that can support the base of the deep radial consolidation columns. Based on the same-thickness curves (Figure 5), different engineering solutions were chosen for intervals varying between 0 and 3 m (soil removed and changed) and 3 and 9 m (soil treated by deep radial consolidation). As can be seen in Figure 5, there are regions with deep layers of clay up to 10m thick. These two regions comprise a boundary in which ground treatment solutions, such as prefabricated vertical drains, were not applicable because the construction schedule did not allow the use of more traditional techniques. 3.2 Vane tests The vane test is considered to be the reference test in Brazil for undrained strength measurement, despite it not being the reference worldwide. The undrained strength obtained from vane tests exhibits extremely low values. In the vane test performed near standard penetration test 27, the undrained strength values range from 091 to 124kPa up to 4m depth. In the results from the vane test performed at standard penetration test 28, values vary from 030 to 30kPa up to 6m depth. Thus, the upper part of the soft soil layer is composed of a soil

Figure 3. The Rio 2016 Athletes Park is a 13ha multifunction park between the Olympic Village and Olympic Park sites

3. Athletes Park case study

The deep radial consolidation technique was used in the construction of the Athletes Park on the north shore of Jacarepagua lagoon in Barra da Tijuca (Figure 3). Located between the Rio 2016 Olympic Village and Olympic Park, this is a multifunction park of approximately 13ha that was completed in 2011. To provide a better understanding of the soft soil behaviour of the site, a series of in situ and laboratory geotechnical tests were carried out as follows: standard penetration tests, moisture content measurements, index tests, oedometer tests, piezocone tests, Mnard pressuremeter tests and vane tests. Among the various techniques of the in situ tests (Mayne et al., 2009; Schnaid, 2009) the piezocone provides an excellent definition of the soil stratigraphy and profiling, stress history and strength parameters. The vane test is the most commonly used test for determining the in situ undrained strength of soft clay deposits. Clay compressibility may be obtained by oedometer test parameters used to estimate the rate and magnitude of structure settlements founded on soft soils. These three tests are the most commonly used in soft soil
0 Blow count (N) 5 10 15 20 0 5 Blow count (N) 10 15 20

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Depth: m 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

m SPT 27 SPT 28 10.0 9.0 8.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.5 0

Figure 4. Typical geotechnical profile of the Rio 2016 Athletes Park based on two standard penetration tests

Figure 5. Contour map of the Rio 2016 Athletes Park shows that the soft soil layer is up to 10m thick

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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

with very low strength indeed. This characteristic, associated with the value of the consolidation coefficient, prevented construction using traditional techniques, such as staged embankment construction using prefabricated vertical drains, berms and geosynthetic reinforcement. As can be seen in Figure 6(a), the results showed values much smaller than those obtained by the pressuremeter. Figure 6(b) shows the values obtained for soil sensitivity, which is the ratio between the undisturbed and disturbed sample undrained strengths. The value of sensitivity for vane tests 27 and 28 lies in the range 111. It is important to note that of 13 measurements, seven can be classified as high sensitivity, four as medium sensitivity and three as low sensitivity (Skempton and Northey, 1952). Therefore the general clay behaviour is considered as mediumhigh sensitivity for design proposes. 3.3 Piezocone tests Two piezocone tests were performed near SPT 28 and SPT 40. The horizontal coefficient of consolidation values from these tests are very similar and the average value is 252108m/s, a value close to the lower limit found by Almeida et al. (2008a). The results of the piezocone test in terms of pore pressure, lateral friction resistance and corrected tip resistance are presented in Figure 7. To obtain the continuous undrained strength profiles (see Figure 8) the results of the vane tests were correlated with the piezocone data using a cone factor value of 30. The cone factor is the ratio of tip cone resistance minus initial effective vertical stress to the undrained strength from the vane test. The value of 30 is not typical of the soft soils to the west of Rio de Janeiro (Almeida et al., 2010) but the very low value of undrained strength can explain this unusual value. Figure 8 also shows the results of the design strength, which is the undrained strength multiplied by Bjerrums (1973) correction factor related to the plasticity index. For the high values of plasticity existing here, it is reasonable to adopt a factor of 0.6.

(a) 0 1 2 3 Depth: m 4 5 6 7 0

(b) Undrained strength: kPa 1 2 3 4 0

Soil sensitivity 20 10

Average = 7.40

Vane 27 undisturbed Vane 28 undisturbed Vane 27 disturbed Vane 28 disturbed Vane 27 Vane 28

Figure 6. Vane tests results of the site before deep radial consolidation

The vane test is considered to be the reference test in Brazil for undrained strength measurement, despite it not being the reference worldwide
300 400 0 1 2 3 4 Depth: m 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 Measured undrained strength: kPa 4 8 12 16 0 CPTu 28 x 30 VT 27 VT 28 Designed undrained strength: kPa 4 8 12 16 CPTu 28 x 30 VT 27 VT 28

Tip cone resistance: kPa 0 1 2 3 4 Depth: m 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 200 400 600 800 1000 CPTu 28

Lateral friction resistance: kPa 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0 10 20 30 40 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 0

Pore pressure: kPa 100 200

CPTu 28

CPTu 28 u1 CPTu 28 u2 CPTu 28 u0

Figure 7. Results of piezocone test

Figure 8. Undrained strength profiles from piezocone and vane tests

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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

(a) 0

Water content (Wn), liquid limit Wl, plastic limit (Wp): % 0 100 200 300 400

(b) 0

Bulk weight: kN/m3 5 10 15

(c) 20 0 2

Void ratio 4 6

(d) 8 0

Specific gravity: g/cm3 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0

2 Depth: m

Wp Wl Wn

Figure 9. Results of index tests against depth

3.4 Laboratory investigation Index and oedometer tests were carried out using four undisturbed Shelby samples. It was verified that for the upper layers the water content is close to the liquid limit (see Figure 9(a)). The profile of apparent bulk weight (see Figure 9(b)) shows values around 11kN/m up to 3m depth, with a slight increase to 125kN/m at 7m depth. At 5m depth the unit weight is around 17kN/m, probably due to a thin silt lens or silt lens with a fine sand lens, according to the void ratio and soil unit weight at this position. The plastic limit was higher than 40% at depths of 1m and 3m. Values of specific gravity of soil are also too low, mainly in the peat layer, due to the high organic matter. These are all characteristics of soft soils. According to Bo (2005) the term extremely soft soils represents soils that present water content higher than the liquid limit. In general, the liquid index is greater than unity, the plasticity limit is greater than 40% and the apparent bulk weight is near 11kN/m (Bo, 2005). This kind of soil exhibits undrained strength, provided by the vane tests, close to zero.
(a) 0 1 2 3 Depth: m 4 5 6 7 8
Cc_CR Cs_CR

A set of four oedometer tests was carried out at depths of 075, 275, 475 and 675m. The compression index, recompression index and overconsolidation ratio were determined, as well as the vertical coefficient of consolidation, and the results are presented in Figure10. The upper part of the soft soil layer (up to 3m) has a compression index greater than the compression index measured in the lower (below 3m) portion of the layer (Figure 10(a)). Most of the settlement was expected to occur in the upper part of the layer but even in the lower part, settlement was significant. The total settlement expected was 12m for a 22m high embankment construction. According to Figure 10(b), the soil presents values of overconsolidation ratio near 1 below 3m. On the other hand, in the upper part of the soil layer, the value of overconsolidation ratio is smaller than 1. In this case the soil is still under consolidation. Considering the vertical coefficient of consolidation value and a medium soft soil thickness of 8m, the time requested to achieve 90% consolidation was about 240days (8 months). Despite the care in the
(c) Vertical coefficient of consolidation: m2/s 5E8 1E7

Compression index (Cc), Recompression index (Ws) 1 2 3

(b) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0

Effective vertical stress: kPA 10 20 30 40

0E+0 0 1

1v0 (kPa) 1vm (kPa)

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Figure 10. Results of oedometer tests against depth

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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

sampling of the specimens, samples AM-3 and AM-4 did not present good quality and the values of compression index and compression ratio of these samples are not typical of the soils investigated.

Plan
3m Deep radial consolidation column
1.5 m 1.5 m

The main requirement related to the Athletes Park area (elevation level +09m) was delivering an embankment at a level of +22m within 4 months. Construction in a single stage was not a valid solution because of the extremely low measured values of undrained strength, even if using equilibrium berms and geosynthetic reinforcement. In this context, the deep radial consolidation technique was adopted to accommodate the tight schedule for the construction and settlement stabilisation. The technique was applied in an area of approximately 16000m in the Athletes Park, at locations at which soft soil was in the range 410m thick. Soil substitution was applied in the remaining areas where the soft soil thickness was less than 3m. The deep radial consolidation technique has been in use for the past decade in Brazil. It is an evolution of compaction grouting using the cavity expansion principle (Vsic, 1972), which has been applied since the early 1950s (Brown and Warner, 1973; Graf, 1969) in sandy and silty soils. The technique consists of installing a grid of prefabricated vertical drains throughout the depth of the saturated soft soil. Grout columns are then formed within the drainage grid by injecting a series of contiguous bulbs into the soil and compressing it radially, as shown in Figure 11. The grout used in these injections is mortar, a sandsilt cement mixture in proportions of around 80:15:5 respectively. The prefabricated vertical drains and injected columns are usually in a square formation, with columns typically spaced at 34m with the drains beings 152m apart. The injection operations are performed bottom-up, such that each column is formed by bulbs positioned successively one above the other. Each bulb installation is monitored with respect to the volume of the bulb and the applied pressure. The volume of the bulb is generally 8001000litres and injection pressures range from 100 to 1000kPa, decreasing towards the ground surface. The final product is a composite material with improved strength and stiffness. Depending on the amount of cement used, the injected columns can be quite stiff. However, subject to the ratio of embankment height to span, the arching effect in the composite material could also be significant in some cases.

3m

4. Mortar injection and vertical drains

Prefabricated vertical drain A A

Section AA
Working platform Deep radial consolidation column Soft soil improved Soft soil Hard soil Prefabricated vertical drain

Figure 11. Basic concept of the deep radial consolidation technique

5. Assessing the techniques efficiency

A pressuremeter test was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the deep radial consolidation technique. This choice was based on the fact that the main mechanism of ground treatment is the application of radial stresses, analogous to Mnard pressuremeter tests. The undrained strength values presented in Table 2 were calculated by means of Ghionna and Jamiolkowski (1981) and Briaud (1986) methods. These parameters were obtained by means of pressuremeter tests carried out before and after deep radial consolidation. The deformation analyses made

Test depth and whether before or after deep radial consolidation 1.2m depth before 1.2m depth after 3m depth before 3m depth after 5m depth before 5m depth after 7m depth before 7m depth after

Compression modulus: kPa

Ultimate pressure: kPa

Undrained strength: kPa (Ghionna and Jamiolkowski, 1981) 13.36 22.25 9.10 16.76 11.25 41.46 80.35 110.53

Undrained strength: kPa (Briaud, 1986)

Increase in compression modulus after deep radial consolidation: %

277 295 257 662 885 5928 12486 25090

55 78 69 115 99 270 510 510

6.90 17.48 15.95 23.39 20.91 44.37 71.50 75.66

6.50

157.60

569.83

100.95

Table 2. Results of pressuremeter tests at the Rio 2016 Athletes Park before and after deep radial consolidation

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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

1800 1600 1400 V0lume: cm3 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 0 10 20 30 Pressure: (kPa) 40 50 60

1800 1600 1400 V0lume: cm3 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 0 20 40 60 Pressure: (kPa) 80 100

1800 1600 1400 V0lume: cm3 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 0 20 40 60 Pressure: (kPa) 80 100 120

1800 1600 1400 V0lume: cm3 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 0 50 100 150 Pressure: (kPa) 200 250 300

Figure 12. Results of pressuremeter tests before and after deep radial consolidation application: (a) 12m depth before; (b) 12m depth after; (c) 5m depth before; (d) 5m depth after

by pressuremeter test confirmed that the undrained strength increased after application of the technique. The improved clay deposit, although initially disturbed by deep radial consolidation, exhibited much higher values after a certain time. Typical results of the pressuremeter tests are shown in Figure 12 for the conditions before and after deep radial consolidation. The pressuremeter test compression modulus was also evaluated, as well as the ultimate pressure the stress related to soil rupture (Schnaid, 2009). To assess the performance of the ground treatment, field monitoring was performed during and after deep radial consolidation injections and embankment construction works. The fill height applied was around 22m and a total of 15 settlement plates were installed and monitored during a period of 35months. Figure 13 presents the results, which indicate rapid settlement stabilisation after the embankment had reached its final height of 22m. Most of the plates readings have shown that the settlement values were less than 120mm and that they stabilised relatively quickly, so the overall project performance was quite satisfactory.

of soft soil and a bottom layer of sand. An extensive geotechnical investigation was performed for the Athletes Park site, on which a 22m high embankment was needed. Very low values of undrained strength were observed, such that embankment construction in stages using reinforcement was not appropriate. Deep radial consolidation, a technique recently developed in Brazil, was used to stabilise the soil foundation. This particular application showed that the technique works as an efficient method for ground improvement of soft soil deposits. Field monitoring was performed to assess the performance of the ground treatment with 15 settlement plates. Results showed that stabilisation was achieved and that a period of just 35months was necessary for embankment stabilisation. This is significantly less than the 8months required when using surcharge for consolidation. Deep radial consolidation is a useful technique that could be used in similar situations to the Athletes Park for soil stabilisation.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Rio de Janeiros Prefecture for allowing publication of the Athletes Park data. Engegraut Company provided support for field monitoring. Overall financial support for the authors research studies on ground improvement has been provided by grants from INCT/MCT (REAGEOS Project), FAPERJ (Cientista do Estado Project) and CNPq.

6. Conclusions
This paper describes the soil profile found in the Rio 2016 Athletes Park and other sites to the west side of Rio de Janeiro. In this area, the general profile comprises an upper layer of peat, an intermediate layer

Typical results of the pressuremeter tests are shown in Figure 12 for the conditions before and after deep radial consolidation. The pressuremeter test compression modulus was also evaluated, as well as the ultimate pressure the stress related to soil rupture
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Civil Engineering Special Issue Volume 166 Issue CE6 November 2013

Ground improvement in soft soils in Rio de Janeiro: the case of the Athletes Park Riccio, Baroni and Almeida

3.5 months Embankment height: mm 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Stress: kPa

20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 1200 1400 06/05 09/05 13/05 17/05 20/05 24/05 28/05 31/05 04/06 08/06 12/06 15/06 18/06 23/06 26/06 30/06 04/07 07/07 11/07 15/07 19/07 22/07 26/07 30/07 02/08 06/08 10/08 13/08 17/08 21/08 25/08 28/08

Plate PR-1 Plate PR-2 Plate PR-3 Plate PR-4 Plate PR-5 Plate PR-6 Plate PR-7 Plate PR-8 Plate PR-A Plate PR-B Plate PR-C Plate PR-D Plate PR-E Plate PR-F Plate PR-G Embankment elevation

Settlement: mm

Date

Figure 13. Embankment settlement results obtained by plate monitoring; settlement stabilised within 6 weeks of the embankment reaching its final 22m height

References
Almeida MSS, Santa Maria PEL, Martins ISM, Spotti AP and Coelho LBM (2002) Consolidation of very soft clay with vertical drains. Discussion. Gotechnique 52(2): 148154. Almeida MSS, Marques MES, Miranda TC and Nascimento CMC (2008a) Lowland reclamation in urban areas. Proceedings of TC 41 International Workshop on Urban Infrastructure, Bzios, Rio de Janeiro. Almeida MSS, Futai MM, Lacerda WA and Marques MES (2008b) Laboratory behaviour of Rio de Janeiro soft clays Part 1. Soils and Rocks 31: 6975. Almeida MSS, Marques MES and Baroni M (2010) Geotechnical parameters of very soft clays from CPTu. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Cone Penetration Testing, Huntington Beach, CA, USA. (Robertson PK and Mayne PW (eds)), pp. 495502. Baroni M (2010) Site Investigation in Very Compressible Soft Clay Deposits in Barra Da Tijuca. Masters dissertation, COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (in Portuguese). Bjerrum L (1973). Problems of soil mechanics and construction on soft clays and structurally instable soils. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Moscow, 3, pp. 111159. Bo MW (2005) Compressibility of Ultra Soft Soils. Imperial College Press, London, UK. Briaud JL (1986) Pressuremeter and foundation design. Proceedings of Specialty Conference on Use of In-Situ Tests in Geotechnical Engineering, Blacksburg. ASCE, New York, USA, pp. 74115. Brown DR and Warner J (1973) Compaction grouting. Journal of the Soil Mechanics and Foundations Division, ASCE 99(8): 589601. Crespo Neto FN (2004) Rate Effect on Strength from Vane Test. Masters dissertation, COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (in Portuguese). Ghionna V and Jamiolkowski M (1981) Colonne di Ghiaia, X Ciclo di Conferenze Dedicate ai Problem di Meccanica dei Terreni E Ingegneria delle Fondazioni Metodi di Miglioramento dei Terreni. Politecnico di Torino Ingegneria, atti dell Istituto di Scienza delle Construzioni, no. 507. Graf ED (1969) Compaction grouting technique and observations. Journal of the Soil Mechanics and Foundations Division, ASCE 95(5): 11511158. Lacerda WA and Almeida MSS (1995) Engineering properties of regional soils: residual soils and soft clays state-of-the-art theme 1. Proceedings of the X Panamerican Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundations, Guadalajara, Mexico, 4, 133176. Macedo EO, Almeida MSS and Danziger FAB (2006). In situ undrained strength from T-bar tests. Proceedings of COBRAMSEG XIII Brazilian Geotechnical Congress, Curitiba, Brazil, 2, 619624 (in Portuguese). Mayne PW, Coop MR, Springman SM, Huang A and Zornberg JG (2009) Geomaterial behavior and testing. Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Alexandria, Egypt, 27772872. Sandroni SS and Consoli NC (2010) About the Brazilian practice with two difcult soils: extremely soft and expansible soils. Proceedings of the XIV Brazilian Geotechnical Congress, Gramado (in Portuguese). Sandroni SS and Deotti LOG (2008) Instrumented test embankments on piles and geogrid platforms at the Panamerican Village, Rio de Janeiro. Proceedings of the 1st PanAmerican Geosynthetics Conference and Exhibition, Cancun, Mexico, CD ROM. Schnaid F (2009) In Situ Testing in Geomechanics. Taylor and Francis, Oxford, UK. Skempton AW and Northey RD (1952) The sensitivity of clays. Gotechnique 3(1): 7278. Vsic AS (1972) Expansion of cavities in innite soil mass. Journal of Soil Mechanics and Foundations Division, ASCE 98(3): 265290.

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