DISCUSSION ON PAPERS 1–4

Cohesionless soils

MR HAGENAAR, Paper 1

Point load tests are frequently carried out on

broken cores and lumps of weak carbonate rocks

and coral formations. Unfortunately, it has not

been possible to obtain a sufficient number of

core samples satisfying the length to diameter

ratio required for unconfined compressive

strength testing. An accurate correlation

between the point load index I and unconfined

compressive strength q , necessary for strength

classification of the weak rocks along the Red

Sea coast of Saudi Arabia, was therefore not

possible.

However, a limited number of test results

indicated that the relationship k = q /I for