Determining soil permeability from pressuremeter tests

This paper presents a methodology for identifying soil permeability from pressuremeter test. On the first part we present a numerical analysis of the permeability effects on the test results. We demonstrate that different drainage conditions arise during test, as a function of the loading rate and the soil permeability. We also studied the pore pressure dissipation during strain holding stages. Based on this analysis of these tests, we propose a general procedure to identify simultaneously mechanical parameters and permeability from pressuremeter tests with strain holding test stages. This procedure was applied on tests performed on natural Saint-Herblain clay. An apparatus called pressio-triax was developed for this purpose. The values of the mechanical parameters as well as of the permeability value were found to agree very well with the values of the same parameters obtained from conventional laboratory tests