Improved correlation between penetration tests and electrical resistivity

Abstract

Abstract A theoretical multivariate study was conducted in order to formulate an expression that relates electrical resistivity to the number of blows in the Dynamic Probing Super Heavy test. Improving further recent studies, this new expression shows a relatively good correlation between these two variables, enhanced by the multivariate analysis. It implies that robust correlations may only be drawn locally for specific field site, where the rest of the involved variables remain constant. In the search for a more general correlation, Electrical Resistivity Tomography and Dynamic Probing Super Heavy tests were performed to measure resistivity and soil resistance simultaneously at different field sites, in order to verify the results of the multivariate theoretical study. The results show that there is a qualitative relationship between these values but a quantitative relationship is only possible at the same field site, which coincides with the results of the theoretical study.