Cone penetration test
The cone penetration or cone penetrometer test (CPT) is a method used to determine the geotechnical engineering properties of soils and delineating soil stratigraphy. It was initially developed in the 1950s at the Dutch Laboratory for Soil Mechanics in Delft to investigate soft soils. Based on this history it has also been called the "Dutch cone test". Today, the CPT is one of the most used and accepted soil methods for soil investigation worldwide.
The test method consists of pushing an instrumented cone, with the tip facing down, into the ground at a controlled rate (controlled between 1.5 -2.5 cm/s accepted). The resolution of the CPT in delineating stratigraphic layers is related to the size of the cone tip, with typical cone tips having a cross-sectional area of either 10 or 15 cm², corresponding to diameters of 3.6 and 4.4 cm. A very early ultra-miniature 1 cm² subtraction penetrometer was developed and used on a US mobile ballistic missile launch system (MGM-134 Midgetman) soil/structure design program in 1984 at the Earth Technology Corporation of Long Beach, California.
The early applications of CPT mainly determined the soil geotechnical property of bearing capacity. The original cone penetrometers involved simple mechanical measurements of the total penetration resistance to pushing a tool with a conical tip into the soil. Different methods were employed to separate the total measured resistance into components generated by the conical tip (the "tip friction") and friction generated by the rod string. A friction sleeve was added to quantify this component of the friction and aid in determining soil cohesive strength in the 1960s. Electronic measurements began in 1948 and improved further in the early 1970s. Most modern electronic CPT cones now also employ a pressure transducer with a filter to gather pore water pressure data. The filter is usually located either on the cone tip (the so-called U1 position), immediately behind the cone tip (the most common U2 position) or behind the friction sleeve (U3 position). Pore water pressure data aids determining stratigraphy and is primarily used to correct tip friction values for those effects. CPT testing which also gathers this piezometer data is called CPTU testing. CPT and CPTU testing equipment generally advances the cone using hydraulic rams mounted on either a heavily ballasted vehicle or using screwed-in anchors as a counter-force. One advantage of CPT over the Standard Penetration Test (SPT) is a more continuous profile of soil parameters, with data recorded at intervals typically of 20 cm but as small as 1 cm.
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