Determining Field Conditions Affecting Mine Impact Burial
Abstract
LONG-TERM GOAL. The long-term goal of this work is to develop a set of tools that can be used to determine insitu values for certain sediment geotechnical properties that are needed when predicting the potential for burial when mines impact the sea bottom. OBJECTIVES. The principal objective of this work has been to develop a set of mechanical, remote-sensing tools that will permit the determination of the main geotechnical variables that control mine embedment in the bottom. These properties include the undrained shear strength of soft, fine-grained cohesive sediments and the relative density of coarser granular sediment such as beach sand. APPROACH. Over the past several years our field work has led to the development of a number of remote-sensing tools that have direct application to the problem of mine burial prediction. As an example, the penetration resistance measured by several different types of probe that we have developed is directly related to the bearing capacity of the sediment, which is of prime importance in studies of mine burial in the seafloor. These probes include XBP ,an expendable bottom penetrometer, PROBOS , a modified version of the Canadian STING penetrometer and a quasistatic penetrometer, STATPEN that measures both cone and sleeve penetration resistance to a depth of 2 meters into the sea floor. The XBP probes have been used to map critical areas in recent NATO exercises aimed at Rapid Environmental Assessment (Stoll and Akal, 1999) and various versions of STATPEN have been built for NATO, Saclant Undersea Research Centre and for the Naval Research Lab, Stennis Space Center. STATPEN utilizes a cone penetrometer of standard size and shape (i.e. Amer. Soc. Testing and Materials (ASTM) std 60 degree cone, 10 square centimeters of crosssectional area and a 2 cm/sec penetration rate) supported by a weighted, 4-legged frame that rests on the sea bottom during deployment of the cone.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA628105
Entities
People
- Robert D. Stoll
- Y Sun
Organizations
- Columbia University