CORRESPONDENCE

The Secretary,
The Institution

of Civil Engineers.

DEAR SIR,
In the article Settlement studies in Egypt, 1 the Author refers (p. 41) in the following
manner to a Paper 2 by myself and Mr Schuyler :
While in Cairo, Professor Terzaghi was inclined to think that elastic rebound was
due partly to the sand layers.
A similar opinion on another similar problem was expressed in a Paper submitted to the Second International
Conference on Soil Mechanics
(Tschebotarioh
and-Schuyler,
1948).
The statement
quoted above seems to be based on a misunderstanding.
The problem dealt
with by our Paper had nothing to do with sands and very little to do with elastic rebound.
As suggested by the inclusion in the title of the words unbalanced
excavation,
the Paper
treated the problem of deformations
of the bottom of pits, caused by shearing stresses within
the surrounding
soil mass.
I agree with Dr Hanna that the measured changes in the rate of settlement during seasonal
water-level variations
in Egypt cannot be attributed
to the elastic rebound of underlying
sand layers, if only because such a rebound would affect a wide area including the benchmarks, with reference to which the settlements
of the buildings were determined there.
I do
believe, however, that changes in the effective weight of overlying layers due to buoyancy,
rather than their swelling tendencies,
are responsible
for the phenomena
observed.
For
instance, such changes in the rate of settlement have been observed in Egypt in the case of
buildings founded on piles reaching well below the zone of seasonal water-level variations but
underlain by other compressible layers in which the seat of settlement was located.3
The sampler described in Dr Hannas article is a valuable addition to the soil-testing
equipment used in Egypt.
The decrease of the m, values resulting from the use of this
type of sampler is of the same order of magnitude as that recorded by myself 1 on Egyptian
clays by loading in a consolidometer
up to the pre-consolidation
value (determined
from a
separate test), unloading
to the weight of the overburden,
loading again, and computing
the m, values from the second run of loading.
The Egyptian clays are not sensitive to remoulding,4 and for that reason the comparatively
high value of the area-ratio of the sampler reported by Dr Hanna is not likely to cause any
harmful remoulding
of this type of clay : this, however, would not be the case for more
It might possibly be of advantage,
for such
sensitive swelling clays in other localities.2
soils, to develop a tool for cutting floating consolidometer
rings from thin-walled
Shelby
tube-samplers
while they were still filled with soil, and trimming off any slight depth. from
the surface which might have been disturbed by the sawing.
Yours faithfully,
GREGORY P. TSCHEBOTARIOFF.
1 HANNA, W. S., 1950. Settlement studies in Egypt. Gktechnique.
2 : 33-45.
2 TSCHEBOTARIOFF.
G. P., and SCHUYLER.J. R., 1948. Comparisonof the extent of disturbance produced
by driving piles into plastic clay to the disturbance caused by an unbalanced excavation. Proc. Second Int.
Conf. Soil Mech.
2 : 199-205.
Trans. Amer. Sot. Civ.
a TSCHEBOTARIOFF,
G. P., 1940. Settlement studies of structures in Egypt.
10.5 : 919-972 (see Fig. 7).
Engrs.
4 TSCHEBOTARIOFF.
G. P., 1936. Comparison between consolidation, elastic and other soil properties
rt;bF3;ed from laboratory tests and from observations of structures in Egypt. Proc. Int. Colzf. Soil Mech.

264

CORRESPONDENCE

26j

The Secretary,
The Institution

of Civil Engineers.

DEAR SIR.

for his comments on my article ; I shall answer

I am grateful to Professor Tschebotarioff
the various points raised by him in the order in which they appear.
(1) My remark on compressibility
and the elastic rebound due to deep layers of sand
under compressible clay layers referred to the following passage in the Paper by
Professor Tschebotarioff
and Mr Schuyler, which explains the purpose of my
making the point in my article.
The compressible clay layers in the cases studied in Egypt usually did not
They were underlain by deep layers of sand of
exceed 20 to 30 feet thickness.
medium density.
Their compressibility
had to be assumed as being equal to zero,
although in the light of recent research this assumption appears questionable.
(2) I do not agree with Professor Tschebotarioff
on the principle of testing samples of
the swelling clays, extracted by ordinary samplers, by loading them to the preconsolidated
value.
I do not think it is ever possible to determine the preconsolidated
value accurately enough in clays which have been subjected to such
widely varying conditions : the clays in Egypt have been subjected to alternate
stages of complete dryness which turns them into solid bodies in summer and
complete saturation
in times of flood, and the known methods of determining the
preconsolidation
pressure do not seem to be applicable.
The loading of a sample to the preconsolidation
pressure requires the absence
Neither conof disturbance
of the sample and a knowledge of that pressure.
dition is fulfilled in Egyptian clays. I believe that the reduction of the m, values
obtained by applying this method to such clays is attributable
mainly to the
general natural decrease due to the second run of loading and not due to the
justification of the principles involved, because of the difficulties referred to above.
This ratio
(3) I agree that the sampler described in my article has a high area-ratio.
has been improved slightly in later models, and I believe it is possible to improve
it still further to the value for samplers in general use.
Yours faithfully,
W. S. HANNA.