Cone penetration testing in polar snow

• Main Author: McCallum, Adrian Bruce
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Scott Polar Research Institute 2012
• Subjects: Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244073; https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.16312; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/244073

Innovative Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) using adapted commercial CPT equipment was conducted in Antarctica in early 2010 in an attempt to assess the strength of polar snow; additionally, application of CPT data was considered, particularly in estimating surface bearing capacity. Almost 100 CPT tests were carried out and both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data was undertaken. Additional supporting testing in- cluded snow density assessment, snow strength assessment, extrapolation of CPT data via Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and preliminary mini-cone penetrometer testing in Greenland. Analysis of results revealed that assessing the strength of polar snow via CPT is affected by numerous factors including penetration rate, cone size/shape and snow material properties, particularly compaction of the snow undergoing penetration. A density-dependant relationship between CPT resistance and snow shear strength was established, and methods for estimating surface bearing capacity directly from CPT in homogeneous and layered polar snow were proposed. This work applied existing technology in a new material and shows that CPT can be used efficiently in polar environs to provide estimates of snow shear strength and surface bearing capacity, to depths of 10 m or more.