Mass excavation, transport, fill and compaction for the Site

Preparation of the Technical Facilities at the Operation Support

Facility (OSF) Site of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array
(ALMA) Observatory located near the villages of San Pedro de
Atacama and Toconao, II. Region, Chile, South America.

For Construction Phase 3

Geotechnical Report

Doc. No.: SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP

Version : A

Status : For Review and Comments

30-Jan-2004


Prepared By :
Name(s) and Signature(s) Organization Date

Michael Wagner




29.Jan.2004

Approved By :
Name(s) and Signature(s) Organization Date

Claus Dierksmeier



30.Jan.2004
Released By :
Name(s) and Signature(s) Organization Date

Claus Dierksmeier



30.Jan.2004
ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 3 of 10




Change Record


Version Date Section/ Page Affected Reason/ Initiation
Documents/ Remarks








































ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 3 of 10




Table of Contents Page

1.1 Introduction 4
1.2 Available Antecedents 4
1.3 Available Information 4
1.4 Analysis of the Information Obtained 6
1.5 Bearing Capacity 6
1.5.1 Foundation on Rock (Ignimbrite) 6
1.5.2 Foundation on Structural Fill Material 7
1.6 Excavation of Slope 9
1.7 Excavation and Fillings 9
1.8 Treatment of the Embedment 9
1.9 Fill Material 9
1.10 Uniformity of the foundation Embedment 10
1.11 Reception of the Foundation Embedment 10




ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 3 of 10


1.1 Introduction

The ALMA project (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) in the II region is considering a Operation
Support Facility (OSF) to be build at an elevation of approximately 2.900 m a.s.l.

In the framework of the design of technical facilities at the OSF a geotechnical investigation has
been perfomed in order to determine the geotechnical parameters and the bearing capacity of the
material where structures of the Operation Support Facility will be founded.

1.2 Available Antecedents

For this geotechnical report the following antecedents have been taken into account:

A Site visit to the OSF of the geotechnical engineering team
The execution of 2 Rotation Drilling with 15 meters depth
The excavation of 15 exploration pits covering the future OSF site
The results of the field prospectings and the laboratory rock tests performed (Report of
TECNOLAB LTDA., with the number 53.709)

1.3 Available Information

The two rotation drillings with 15 m depth each have been executed at the following
topographical coordinates:

Prospection Coordinate UTM North Coordinate UTM East
Drilling 1 7.488.356 604.633
Drilling 2 7.448.490 604.708

From the 15 exploration pits with variable depths, 12 have been placed in the construction area of the
structures and 3 at places where it should be possible to gain structural fills and materials for
concrete production.

The most probable stratigraphic description for the OSF site:


Horizon 1: 0.0 - 0.4 Gravel with sandy silt, brown color, medium compactness, low
moisture, non plastic fine, angular and subangular grains.

Horizon 2: 0.4 - Ignimbrite rock. Light brown color. Medium to low hardness.
Not sensitive to water contact.






ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 4 of 10



In the following some pictures of the drillings, the exploration pits and the rock samples are
presented.

















Photo 1: Drilling 1
















Photo 2: Location of Drilling 2




ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 5 of 10


















Photo 3: Drillings Cores






























Photo 4: Exploration Pit 10


ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 6 of 10




1.4 Analysis of the information obtained

Out of the analysis of the information obtained the following conclusions can be drawn:

1. The material where the different structures of the project will be founded is rock that
is starting from a maximum depth of 0,4 m.

2. The rock type is INGNIMBRITE of light brown color with medium to low hardness.

3. Where the foundation level lies higher than the actual landscape (filling areas),
structural fills, based on sandy materials, will have to be made.


1.5 Bearing Capacity

The bearing capacity of the ground for the foundations of the structures has been determined for the
following two cases:

- Foundation on rock and
- Foundation on structural fill material

Both cases are shown as follows:

1.5.1 Foundation on Rock (ignimbrite)

A. Geotechnical Parameters

The following geotechnical parameters have been adopted for the ignimbrite.

Foundation Material Ignimbrite
Color Light Brown
Density [ton/m
3
] 2,13
Uniaxial compressive strength [kg/cm
2
] 157
Elasticity Module [kg/cm
2
] 2000
Ratio of Poisson 0,15
Internal friction angle [] * 50
Cohesion [kg/cm
2
] * 0,5
*: Only for calculation purposes. Does not have validity in another sense

ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 7 of 10



B Ignimbrite Bearing Capacity

Using the geotechnical parameters given above and considering the characteristics of the
ignimbrite, the bearing capacity has been determined according to the Canadian Geotechnical
Manual for bearing capacity in rocks:

q
ul
= K
s
* RCS * D

where -

q
ul
: Bearing Capacity [kg/cm
2
]
K
s
: Factor associated to discontinuities (0,3 for this case)
RCS : Uni-axial compressive strength [kg/cm
2
]
D : Form Factor (1,4 for this case)

Considering the result of the uniaxial compressive strength test with RCS = 157 the bearing
capacity is:
q
ul
= 66 kg/cm
2


Considering a security factor of 3, the acceptable bearing capacity for the ignimbrite is:

q
ad
= 22 kg/cm
2


This value allows for the foundation of any normal structure on the ignimbrite.

The settlements associated to these bearings, are considered to be lower than 1 cm.

1.5.2 Foundation on Structural Fill Material

There have been made exploration pits in different locations. Some of these exploration pits
were designated to the identification of adequate filling material. It was possible to detect
some suitable sand fill material at a distance of 3 km to the OSF site.


A Geotechnical Parameters

The following are the geotechnical parameters that have been adopted for the compacted sand
at this site.

ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 8 of 10



Foundation Material Compacted Sand
Color Brown
Dry unit weight [ton/m
3
] 1,84
Water content [%] 4,0
Void Ratio 0,47
Elasticity Module [kg/cm
2
] 800
Ratio of Poisson 0,15
Internal friction angel [] 35
Cohesion [kg/cm
2
] 0,0
Active pressure coefficient 0,31


B Bearing Capacity of the Compacted Sand

Using the geotechnical parameters given above a Soil Mechanics calculation has been
performed in order to determine Bearing Capacity in the filled areas.

For the foundation at the structures it has been considered that the filling material will have a
minimum thickness of 0,5 m under the foundation. On the other hand the embedment of the
foundation will be buried into the filling material with a minimum of 0,6 m.

Therefore the fill will have a minimum depth of 1,1 m.

The foundations will be made based on continuous footings with a width of 0,6 m, or square
footings with a width of 0,5 m x 0,5 m.

The parameters used are the followings:

Depth of Embedment D = 0,6 m
Width of Continuous Footing B
cor
= 0,6 m
Width of square footing B
cua
= 0,5 m
Load over soil q
sol
= 2,0 kg/cm
2


With the previous data and the parameters of the filling material, the bearing capacity has
been calculated (see Annex). The results are the following:

For continuos footing:

Static Bearing Capacity q
ult
= 2,5 kg/cm
2

Seismic Bearing Capacity q
ults
= 3,7 kg/cm
2

Settlement < 1 cm

For square footing:

Static Bearing Capacity q
ultcua
= 2,2 kg/cm
2

Seismic Bearing Capacity q
ultsa
= 3,3 kg/cm
2


ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 9 of 10


Settlement < 1 cm

Those values are conservative and they indicate that the filling material has a suitable bearing
capacity and will not produce excessive settlements.

The previous results indicate that if the filling material is being loaded with 2 kg/cm
2
, the
settlement will be less than 1 cm, a value totally acceptable for this type of works.


1.6 Excavation of Slopes

The cuts and slopes of the project that will be made in rock (ignimbrite) allow almost vertical
slopes (it is recommended to use a slope of 1:5, horizontal: vertical).

1.7 Excavations and Fillings

For the excavations conventional machinery according to the construction companys
availability can be used. However there has to be applied manual excavation for the last 0,30
m over the level of the embedment in order to minimize the alteration of the natural structure
of the support material.

Any over excavation, either in depth or in width, will have to be filled with concrete of 170
kg cement per cubic meter, being specifically forbidden any other filler type. However, over
excavation over the embedment will be stuffed with the resulting material of the same
excavation. This material that will be placed with light compaction, with 6 cycles of manual
compactor in layers with a thickness of 0,25 m.

1.8 Treatment of the Embedment

Previously to the placement of the footings or fill, all loose and/or strange material that could
have been deposited during the excavation will have to be removed from the foundation
embedment.

1.9 Fill Material

As fill material a granular material, like sand, will be used. The maximum content of fine soil
(under 200 USCS sieve) in the fill will be 12%. The maximum size of the material will be 2".
The granular material will have to be placed in layers of 30 cm of thickness (in loose state),
following compaction until reaching an equivalent density to 85% of the Relative Density.
The fill will have a minimum total thickness of 1,1 m.



ALMA Project

Design/Engineering at the OSF Technical Facilities
For Construction Phase 3
Geotechnical Report
Contract No. 72057/MEP/03/0568/RFI
Doc. : SITE-20.00.00.00-000-A-REP
Date : 30.Jan.2004
Version : A
Status : For Review And Comment
Page : 10 of 10


In case there will be fill over soil material (silt with gravel) the superficial 10 cm of soil have
to be removed. A compaction passing 4 times with a rolling compactor has to be performed
before putting the fill material.

1.10 Uniformity of the Foundation Embedment

In order to avoid differential settlement in the structures it will be mandatory that all the
structure will be founded in one single material type. That means that each structure will be
founded either on rock or on the structural fill. A structure should never be founded in mixed
form.

1.11 Reception of the Foundation Embedment

The foundation embedment must be approved by a Civil Engineer specialized in such works.



End of the Geotechnical Report