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 ABSTRACT

 Windblown calcareous deposits cover large areas of surface soils in Kuwait. These deposits: of fine calcareous sands that become denser with depth and change to silty sands. The evaluation of the deformation parameters from in-situ test results is of great practical interest: design of foundation in these and other cohesionless soils. Dilatometer testing is becoming more accepted as a routine sounding technique for site explorations. In many cases, rapid estimates of subsurface conditions are obtained and soil parameters are collected using this probe. in this paper, the deformation characteristics of windblown calcareous deposits, which exist frequently in many areas, are studied using Marchetti’s flat dilatometer for the first time in Kuwait. The testing program consisted of auger borings standard penetration tests plate loading tests and dilatometer tests at three sites The compressibility characteristics of the windblown sand are determined. The resulting correlation is employed for prediction of footing settlements where load tests were carried. A comparison of measured and predicted settlement using the Schmertmann method indicated that the dilatometer underestimates settlement for the windblown sand Thus a new correlation is proposed for calculating the drained constrained modulus. The predicted settlement utilizing the modified modulus closely agrees with the measured values. Many other important conclusions  a result as a result of this study.