Assessment of empirical approaches on predicting of deformation modulus of agglomerates

Some empirical studies have been carried out in the literature to determine the strength and deformation properties of agglomerate rock materials composed of andesite blocks in the tuff matrix. Deformation parameters data of aglomera rock material and aglomera rock mass used in this thesis were produced by the geotechnical studies of the Istanbul 3 Bosphorus bridge, Akyazı and Zigana tunnels, and data were supplied from General Directorate of Highways. Some new relationships between uniaxial compressive strength and modulus of elasticity were investigated by using these data, then prediction performances of the produced models were compared with the previous models in literatüre. It was observed that the models which include data obtained from agglomerate and conglomerate rock materials have better prediction performances. In the second part of the study, possible relationships between linear block ratio (LBR) and rock quality designation (RQD) as input parameters and the modulus of deformation as output were evaluated using data obtained from the dilatometer data. In these evaluations based on a limited number data, some preliminary determinations were made that LBR and RQD have potential to produce meaningful relations for predicting of modulus of deformation for agglomerates.