An Updated Database for the Spring Villa National Geotechnical Experimentation Site

摘要

The Spring Villa test site is a national geotechnical experimentation site located near Opelika, Alabama and managed by Auburn University. The test site is located at the southern end of the Piedmont geologic province and is underlain by residual silts and sands which grade with depth into partially weathered rock. The site has been extensively characterized through borings, penetration tests, and geophysical tests. Several types of deep foundations (e.g., pipe piles, H-piles, and drilled shafts) have previously been installed at the site and many have been load tested. This combination of characterization and foundation data makes the Spring Villa site, a unique location to test new characterization methods and develop correlations to load test data in residual soils. Recent and ongoing work at the site includes examination of non-destructive testing methods for deep foundations and lateral load testing of pile bents. Despite the large amount of testing previously performed at the site, no comprehensive database exists showing the locations of these individual tests. This paper will present a new publicly available GIS database meant to address this issue by compiling the data from the various sources into a single location. The history and geology of the Spring Villa test site are briefly described. Results from previous characterization efforts are discussed along with a description of the various types of deep foundation that have been installed and tested at the site. The complied data should make it possible for future researchers to better utilize the site to develop and test methods for evaluating deep foundations in residual soils.