A Useful Tool For Earthworks Control – The Dilatometer

This paper briefly discusses and promotes the use of the in situ Flat Dilatometer test (DMT) for at least some earthworks control. The paper is meant to provoke thought, as follows:

• Geotechnical design is most often based on two parameters, soil strength and modulus. Yet these two parameters are seldom specified or measured as part of earthworks contracts.
• The author holds the view that the main reason for this is “history”. Practical methods were not available in the past to directly measure strength and modulus in the field.
• Advances in in situ testing technology make such measurements possible today.
• Why not, where relevant, include these design-required parameters within earthworks specifications, and why not measure them and make achievement of them part of the earthworks acceptance process?

One, now available, tool that can defensibly measure both strength and modulus and is robust and simple to use, is discussed within this paper, the Flat Dilatometer.