Geotechnical and geophysical investigations in problematic soils of Sukthi area, Albania

Between Tirana and Durresi town in Albania is planed to construct a cement grinding plant with silos, mill construction magazino, compressors room and office. The studied area consist of soft-firm soils with a thickness that varies from 85.0m up to 105.0m. In this paper we wrote some considerations according to geotechnical characteristics, Shallow Seismic and Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) measurements of the studied area. Finally we would like to give some conclussions and recomendations. Seeing, that constructed site consist of soft-firm soils and great thickness, it was necessary to know the bedrocks, because of the foundations of engineering's objects. At first we carried out the geotechnical study, where are done 24 boreholes with depth range from 30.0m up to 60.0m, taking 35 undisturbed samples and 10 disturbed samples to analyses in laboratory for determination of mechanical and physical parameters by ASTM standards and 227 SPT. From the designers of the project was calculated for several engineering object a minimum bearing capacity from 6.0 kg/cm2. Therefore, we need to know the depth of bedrocks for any solution of using of deep foundations (pilot). That's why we completed the geophysical measurements-Apparent Resistivity method with Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES), which determinate the litological situation of bedrocks. Finally, from completion laboratories and in situ test, fields works, as well as, geophysical measurements we determined 12 geotechnical layers of soils and bed rocks as well.