Abstract
The reliability of geotechnical engineering may depend on the spatial variability of the soil properties. In this study, the effects of a site exploration program are assessed through how the spatial variability can be considered through numerical simulation. It is found that, the estimation accuracy of the mean and the standard deviation of a random field will increase as the sampling space increases. When the number of samples is the same, there is an optimal sampling spacing for estimation of the scale of the fluctuation. The effectiveness of a site exploration program also depends on the type of the geotechnical problem under consideration. If the characteristic length of the geotechnical problem is much smaller or larger than the scale of fluctuation, it is more effective to increase the sampling spacing. If the characteristic length is comparable to the scale of fluctuation, an optimal sampling spacing exists for a given number of samples.
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Acknowledgement
This research was substantially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (41672276, 51538009), the National 973 Basic Research Program of China (2014CB049100), and the Shanghai Rising-Star Program (15QA1403800).
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Hu, J.Z., Zhang, J., Huang, H.W. (2018). Assessment of Site Exploration Program Considering Spatial Variability of Soils. In: Zhou, A., Tao, J., Gu, X., Hu, L. (eds) Proceedings of GeoShanghai 2018 International Conference: Fundamentals of Soil Behaviours. GSIC 2018. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0125-4_29
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0125-4_29
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