An open-source application software to determine the preconsolidation pressure of soils in incremental loading oedometer testing: pySigmaP

Abstract

This paper presents pySigmaP, an open-source application software developed in Python 3 under the object-oriented paradigm to determine the preconsolidation pressure, σp′, of soils in incremental loading oedometer testing. pySigmaP was implemented with nine methods: Casagrande, Pacheco Silva, Butterfield, Oikawa, Becker et al., Morin, Onitsuka et al., Wang and Frost, and Boone. Analytical and numerical methods were employed to minimize numerical bias and scale dependency when performing graphical constructions for the determination of σp′. Procedure and numerical application of each method were also presented. pySigmaP provides a more objective and straightforward analysis to estimate σp′of a soil deposit using those nine widely accepted methods.

Keywords

• Open-source application software
• Python 3
• Preconsolidation pressure
• Soil
• Oedometer testing