Speaker Biography:

Mr. Fernando Garcia, P.E., D.GE. is a Principal at Stable Ground In-situ, LLC (SGI); an in-situ site investigation and consulting firm. He earned a Bachelor degree in Civil engineering at Universidad Militar Nueva Granada in Colombia and a Master of Science in Geotechnical Engineering at Universidad Nacional of Colombia. He is registered professional engineer in Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Mr. Garcia is the also Past President of the ASCE Eastern Shore Branch. 

His 40+ years of professional experience in geotechnical engineering includes: the planning, coordination, and Management of geotechnical investigations for hundreds of projects in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and District of Columbia. He has performed analysis of foundations, earth support, road design and slope stability systems using both classical and state-of-the-art methods including Special Numerical Modeling with Finite Elements Analysis (FEA) on dozens of projects.

He has extensive experience using the Pressuremeter (PMT), Flat Dilatometer (DMT) and Seismic Flat Dilatometer (SDMT), Cone Penetration Testing (CPT), Seismic Cone Penetration Testing (SCPT), Vane Shear Testing (VST) as well as the more common Standard Penetration Test (SPT).

 Mr. Garcia has been involved with all aspects of geotechnical engineering and consulting from start to finish. He takes pride in personally performing explorations of soil and rock conditions, efficiently applying that data to engineering design and directly supervising traditional and unique foundations or ground improvement systems.

 Mr. Garcia also has academic experience as an Associate Professor at Military University Nueva Granada in Colombia, teaching: Soil Mechanics, Slope Stability and Fundamentals of Geotechnical Engineering. He has also taught Fundamentals of Geotechnical Engineering as adjunct instructor at University of Maryland College Park.

Topic Description:

In-situ testing has been dominated by Standard Penetration Testing (SPT) for many years. The great advantage many engineers find with this approach is the array of empirical correlations developed over the years in different regions and countries. These SPT correlations can provide multiple soil strength parameters; including internal frictional angle and undrained shear strength. Unfortunately, the “one test fits all”, wide range of  correlations necessitates a healthy safety factor and a conservative design.

In the last century, many new approaches were developed including Cone Penetration Testing (CPT); a quasi-static test becoming the first innovation coming from the SPT; a dynamic testing. Parallel to this, many other ways of testing were developed including the Pressuremeter (PMT), the In-Situ Vane test (VST) and the most modern (albeit almost 50 years old), the Flat Dilatometer (DMT) developed by Professor Marchetti in Italy.

This presentation will navigate through the above mentioned tests, correlations between them and their correlation with the SPT to obtain a full characterization of the soils. The discussion will including obtaining more accurate soil parameters measured directly or though more elaborated methods; different than just a set of blow counts or N-value. Finally, conclusions will be presented about the best application of each test relevant to the soil characteristics or parameters that are desired.

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