Geotechnical Laboratory Testing and Cone Penetration Test Processing
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Vineyard Wind is among the United States' first utility-scale offshore wind farms.

The wind farm will be constructed approximately 15 miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind ultimately will supply 800 megawatts (MW) to more than 400,000 homes. The objective of this phase of the project was to investigate offshore soils at selected locations. The investigation included piezocone Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) and vibrocore sampling. 

Geosyntec's Scope of Services

Geosyntec was retained to perform remote quality control (QC) checking of the CPT, process the CPT data, perform laboratory testing on the samples, and summarize the results. Six CPT tests were performed, and Geosyntec used the data to evaluate the normalized pore pressure ratio, the normalized soil behavior type, shear strength, and relative density.
Geosyntec received 23 core samples and 38 bag samples. Geotechnical laboratory testing included soil descriptions, moisture content, density, specific gravity particle size (sieve and hydrometer), Atterberg limits, minimum density, maximum density, electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity, organic content, pH, soluble salt content, sulfate content, and chloride content on select samples.

Notable Accomplishments

Geosyntec was able to fast-track data processing and results at the client's request. For example, the CPT tests were performed between 22 December and 29 December, which was during the end-of-the-year holiday season in the United States. Even with that timeframe, Geosyntec personnel performed QC of CPT results within two hours of receiving the fieldwork data from offshore. Additionally, Geosyntec completed the first draft of CPT processing results for the client to review one day after the raw data was received.