An experimental study on unit socket resistance of Gaziantep limestone for dry and fully saturated conditions

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between the uniaxial compressive strength and unit socket resistance of Gaziantep limestone experimentally. Since the uniaxial compressive strength of Gaziantep limestone was known to decrease significantly upon saturation, the experiments were conducted in the laboratory for dry and fully saturated conditions on sample limestone blocks taken from a quarry site in Gaziantep. The results revealed that, both the unit socket resistance and uniaxial compressive strength of Gaziantep limestone was decreasing significantly due to saturation. The results were also compared with the methods given in the literature which correlate the unit socket resistance of rocks with their uniaxial compressive strength. These evaluations revealed that the linear correlations significantly overestimated the measured socket resistance values both for dry and fully saturated samples. On the other hand, the non-linear methods generally overestimated the unit socket resistance under fully saturated conditions but provided a reasonable estimation for dry samples. A linear correlation and upper bound and lower bound curves as a non-linear correlation range for estimating the unit socket resistance of Gaziantep limestone from its uniaxial compressive strength were also suggested within this study. It was concluded that care should be taken while using these suggested methods for estimation of the unit socket resistance of Gaziantep limestone especially for places prone to saturation. For such cases, using some of the lower bound solutions discussed in this study may be a safer option for design purposes.