Come join the ASCE Reston Branch for our October 2025 Meeting on Thursday, October 23rd starting at 11:45 AM. You may attend this meeting in-person or virtually.
ASCE membership is not required, but an ASCE account (free) is required for registration.
Our speaker will be Mr. Fernando Garcia, P.E., BC.GE. (Principal for Stable Ground In-situ, LLC) and he will deliver his presentation on
In-situ Testing a Modern
Presentation Topic:
In-situ testing has been dominated by Standard Penetration Test (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 Test (CPT); a quasi-static test becoming the first innovation coming from the SPT; a dynamic test. Parallel to this, many other ways of testing were developed including the Pressuremeter test (PMT), the In-Situ Vane test (VST) and the most modern (albeit almost 50 years old), the Flat Dilatometer test (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 include obtaining more accurate soil parameters measured directly or through 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.
About the Speaker:
Mr. Fernando Garcia, P.E., BC.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 Test (PMT), Flat Dilatometer Test (DMT) and Seismic Flat Dilatometer Test (SDMT), Cone Penetration Test (CPT), Seismic Cone Penetration Test (SCPT), Vane Shear Test (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 Universidad Militar 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.
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