Technical report on the compression, structure, and creep behaviors of lacustrine soil deposits in Bogotá, Colombia
Cristhian Mendoza, Bernardo Caicedo, Jhonathan Duque
Abstract
This technical report on the compression behavior of soft soils in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, was conducted because the city’s recent construction history has led to excessive settlement of soils in the city over the last forty years. Several studies have shown the city’s soil to contain unusually high concentrations of diatoms. The stationary piston method was used to obtain samples from depths of between five and 100 m. Samples were subsequently examined in the laboratory, being subjected to triaxial and oedometer compression tests, and tested also for Atterberg limits and grain size distributions. Test results for undisturbed soil returned very high liquid limit values, compressibility indices CC, secondary compression coefficients Cα, and soil structure effects. Some samples showed particle mixtures of different sizes, mineralogy, and diatom concentrations. Although high CC and Cα indices explain the excessive settling of the city’s buildings, most construction projects do not currently take settlement caused by secondary compression into account. This report shows that secondary compression is an important parameter in the total settlement of buildings in Bogotá and that, furthermore, settlement is also affected by geological history. Finally, useful correlations such as the relationship between the liquid limit, Cα and geological history are presented.