Correlation between Voids Ratio and Characteristic Responses to Ultrasonic Pulses Through Sandy Soils

Abstract

The microporous structure of granular soils that provides important information such as shear strength, compressibility, and hydraulic conductivity, is directly influenced by the void ratio. Therefore, a quick identification of the void ratio, by a non-destructively way and in situ becomes an interesting practice. Ultrasound has been successfully used for ceramic materials, wood, concrete and rocks. When dealing with soils, great efforts are made to understand its behavior and characteristics through wave propagation velocity. However, does still have a lack of discussions about the ultrasonic wave properties. In this paper, a study analysing 156 saturated samples of sands by ultrasound for 3 median particle size, with void ratio ranging from 0.5 to 1.1. The ultrasonic wave measurement was performed using the transmit and receiveand technique, with 50 kHz transducers. The study demonstrates a possibility of identifying transition zones between sample’s materials composition. Considering the same dominant medium, a correlation was observed among the void ratio and the maximum amplitude, the damping coefficient, dominant frequency and ultrasonic pulse speed. There is also the identification of characteristic frequencies for these media. Therefore, the novelties of the present study are mainly the development of a feasible technique to investigate void ratio of granular saturated soils using direct measurements of the ultrasonic wave characteristics.