Shear strength of granular soils from the simulation of dynamic penetration tests

This paper presents a model for the numerical simulation of dynamic penetration tests in cohesionless soils. In the model, dynamic penetration equations are solved by finite difference analysis in the time domain to produce the discretization of the penetration system. The approach allows essential effects of the soil influence to be accounted for, including the dynamic soil resistance by viscous damping during penetration. The model performance has proved by comparisons between the static and dynamic resistance to reproduce the variation with time of measured force, velocity, displacement and energy associated with the interaction mechanism around split-spoon samplers when penetrating in the ground. A realistic representation of the dynamic penetration mechanism allows the internal friction angle of the soil to be estimated. The proposed methodology accounts for scale effects and produces values of φ′ within the same order of magnitude as those estimated from piezocone test data.