CHARACTERIZING THE ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF SOILS IN THE CHARLESTON AREA

Charleston is one of the fastest growing city in the US, and this has led to significant amount of development including construction of commercial buildings and roads. Charleston’s surficial geology is mostly comprised of Quaternary sediments from beach to Barrier Island facies that are usually weakly compacted. Charleston also comprises artificial fill that accommodated the expansion of the peninsula. Previous paleo-seismic studies have shown significant evidence of liquefaction and therefore it is crucial to have an understating of the engineering properties of the foundation serving soils in the area. In this study, core samples from representative sites around the Charleston area were extracted and tested using ASTM based engineering methods in order to characterize and assess their engineering properties. Preliminary results from grain sizes analysis indicated that the soil types ranged from fine sand to loamy sand type. Atterberg limit tests showed LL ranging from 18 to 30%. Permeability test conducted on the samples showed low k values averaging 8x10^-6cm/s. The relatively low k values is attributed to the quartz grains being coated with expansive clay and organic matter as observed under a microscope. Results from LOI also indicated presence of significantly high amount of organic matter in the samples.