Metodología para la caracterización geotécnica de suelos tropicales derivados de rocas volcánicas

Abstract

Introduction- In contrast with soils in temperate zones, soils in tropical zones for being subjected to different factors that help the chemical weathering process tend to present particular geotechnical properties. Significant aspects, as weathering degree and genesis of the material, which influence the soil properties, are not taken into account by methodologies that seek to study the characteristics of these soils. As a consequence, they are insufficient, requiring complementary procedures to achieve a suitable geotechnical description of the material characteristics.

Objective- Propose a methodology to characterize a tropical soil derived from volcanic rocks. This as an attempt to achieve a suitable description of this kind of soils and can be extrapolated to soils from other tropical regions derived from different rocks. In order to reach that purpose, a tropical soil located in a slope at the south-west of the municipality of Caldas, Antioquia, Colombia, was taken as a case-study.

Methodology- An experimental program was performed to evaluate physical, chemical, mineralogical and hydro-mechanical properties of the material from the case-study.

Results- It was observed that the relation between the weathering degree and genesis of the material have an influence on the evaluated geotechnical properties.

Conclusions- By applying this methodological proposal, significant aspects could be evaluated, as the weathering degree and genesis of the material, obtaining not only basic geotechnical parameters to the analysis, design and construction of civil projects but also a better description of the material.