Site characterization by CPTu, SDMT and PMT tests for "Mémorial ACTe" in Guadaloupe

The urban renewal of Guadaloupe Region (Antilles islands) allowed an extensive site investigation at Pointe à Pitre, in order to build the exhibition building "Mémorial ACTe", also called "Centre Caribéen d'Expression et de Mémoire de la Traite et de l'Esclavage". The construction will replace an old, now demolished, sugar refinery (1870), where in past years different fill materials were placed above the tropical and calcareous coralline soils. A geotechnical campaign was performed during 2012-13 and consisted of two continuous core drillings (10 m deep), ten destructive boreholes with Menard pressumeter (PMT) tests every 1.5 m (18-26 m deep), twelve piezocone (CPTu) tests and three seismic dilatometer (SDMT) tests (8-14 m deep) in virgin soil or a backfilled borehole. By integrating the results obtained from different in situ tests, a geotechnical model of the subsoil was defined, focusing on fill materials, tropical soils and altered calcareous coralline, that needed to be compacted before the construction of the "Mémorial ACTe" to improve the strength and compressibility parameters.