Reliability and Accuracy of Seismic Tests in Geotechnical Site Characterization

Geophysical surveys, and specifically seismic tests, provide powerful tools for geotechnical site investigation. Indeed, they cover the whole range of soils and rocks, independently of particle size, and provide data in the natural state for the characterization at different scales. Assessment of the reliability of the most popular techniques is therefore of primary importance for static and seismic applications. This chapter reports some data from recent experiments devoted to reliability assessment at some reference sites, where intra-method and inter-method variability has been studied. The propagation of the measured uncertainties in soil porosity assessment and seismic ground response analyses is also considered to provide an insight on the consequences in the practice of geotechnical engineering.