Several recent articles and discussions in GIN, by Penman (2002), Thomann et al. (2003),
Ridley (2003) and Sellers et al. (2003) highlight the importance of pore water pressure
and suctions and in particular the difficulties associated with measuring suction. This
article outlines some recent experience in measuring suctions, which were developed in
cut slopes in a very stiff glacial till during the Dublin Port Tunnel (DPT) project in
Ireland. A particular feature of the project was the execution of a fully instrumented 12m
deep trial excavation (Menkiti et al., 2004).
Initially some background to the project and to the problem will be given. Then some
details of the specification, installation technique and some examples of the
measurements obtained will be outlined. Finally some conclusions will be made on the lessons learned and recommendations will be made for future similar applications.
