Heterogeneity Evaluation of Soil Engineering Properties Based on Kriging Interpolation Method. Case Study: North East of Iran, West of Mashhad

Many sciences are confronted with uncertainty in their application field. Therefore, the use of statistics plays an important role for creating a partial model of the whole in most practical cases. Preparing a dispersion map, merging spatial statistics and geographic information systems (GIS), is very useful in geotechnical engineering. Interpolation is one of the usual methods to prepare these maps that has many different types. The ordinary kriging which is used in this paper is one of the most popular interpolation methods. This method is usually used to predict possible changes of an unknown variable using known parameters. In general, geostatistical estimation is a process by which one can obtain the value of a quantity in points with unknown coordinates using the same quantity in other points with definite coordinates. In this paper with information about the boreholes drilled in West Mashhad (North East of Iran), the specification of areas without borehole log is determined using interpolation method, drawing of kriging maps including soil texture, percentage of passing No. 200 sieve, standard penetration numbers, dry density, effective SPT area and the use of geostatistical techniques.