Cone Penetration Test

Lecture
by
Sarah Tahsin Noor, PhD

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CPT is one of the Sub-Surface Exploration Techniques

Electrical CPT is a penetration test in which a cone

attached to a sleeve is forced into the ground at a constant
rate to measure the penetration resistance electrically by a
sensor attached to the cone penetrometer.

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Cone Penetration Test
• To determine
• Geotechnical properties of soil
• Water flow Parameter of soil

• Mechanical Cone Penetration Test

• Electrical Cone Penetration Test

 ASTM D 5778-07 Standard Test Method for Electronic Friction

Cone and Piezocone Penetration Testing of Soils

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Electrical Cone Penetration Test
 Two types
 Electrical cone penetration test (CPT)
 Measurement of cone resistance and sleeve friction
 Piezocone test (CPTU)
 Measurement of cone resistance and sleeve friction
 Additional measurement of pore pressure
 Pore pressure is measured at one or several locations on the penetrometer
surface

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CPTu Cone
• Cone Tip Angle = 60⁰
• Cone Base Area = 10 cm2 or 15cm2
• Friction Sleeve Surface = 150 cm2

Friction Filter
Sleeve
Cone Tip A ceramic filter is used
Friction Sleeve to measure dynamic pore pressure
• Located above Cone  Allow rapid movements of the
• measures localized peripheral friction extremely small volumes of water
needed to activate the pressure sensor
 Prevent soil ingress or blockage
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 Electrical CPT(U)

• Electrical CPT(U) probes make up the

most advanced measuring method for
Cone Penetration Testing
• in compression or subtraction design
• Load cells and precision in calibration
• Standards for electrical cones
• EN ISO 22476‐1 class 1

CPT Cones can be Compression Type or Subtraction Type

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Devices for the Measurement of qc and fs
Cone resistance (qc) and local sleeve friction (fs) by means of strain gauged measuring bodies

Cone Resistance Load Cell Friction Sleeve Load Cell

Inner Strain Gauge

Installed inside the Cone Outer Strain Gauge

Typical Range of qc measurement: Typical Range of fs measurement:

50 MPa 500 kPa to 2000 kPa

Cone Resistance : qc Standard measuring ranges

 100 or 50 MPa for qc
Sleeve Resistance : fs  1 or 0.5 MPa for fs
Cone
Friction Sleeve
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Measurement Devices
 Piezo-element
 To Measure Generated and Effective Pore Pressure (u)
 Inclination by means of accelerometers
 Some cones use double inclination sensors for x‐ and y‐ deviation
 Temperature (T) senor
 Environmental or seismic adpaters

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 Route of Reading towards Data Acquisition

Signals of Load Cells

Voltage Signal
via
Amplified and Electric CPT Cable
Transmitted Uphole

16 bit digital signal in the GME 500 data acquisition system

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Electric CPT cable
 Purpose made
 Coming in standard lengths of 2, 10, 30 and 50 m
 Customised length on request
 Pass through CPT Push Rod (alternayely called CPT Pipe)

Data Acquisition
System

Geomil Data acquisition system

(8 analogue and 4 digital channels)
For A/D conversion and automatic recording 10
 Cable Extension, Clamp, Switch to Trigger Recording
 For Extending the Cable
 The unisex water-proof Lemo connectors (gold‐plated)
 Extreme flexibility with a long life cycle
 Fit the cone and data acquisition system

 Push‐/pull clamp (twin ram pusher mounted) with built‐in proximity switch
 The clamp pushes the cone and tubes into the soil and pulls them out again
 The proximity switch triggers the data acquisition system to start the recording.

 Optical string pod or touch wheel depth encoder

 Provides incremental digital pulses

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 Setup-1
C-sections are anchored to the Ground
Pushing Capacity : 10 ton

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Augers: Used to Anchor the CPT Frame to the Ground

Auger
-3 m embedded into the ground
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 Setup-2
Crane Base is supporting the CPT Setup
Pushing Capacity : 10 ton

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 Setup-4
Counter-weight is used in place of Ground Anchor
Pushing Capacity : 15 ton

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 Setup-3
CPT mounted on Truck
Pushing Capacity: 20 ton

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 Setup-2
Steel Truss is anchored to the Ground
Pushing Capacity : 10 ton

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18
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Pore-Water Pressure Measurement

 The pore pressure acting on the cone

 Affects the qc and fs readings

 It may be required to correct for these

effects, especially in
 soft soils
 when pore pressures are high

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Correction for PWP
 Pore pressure acts on
 On the surface of the cone (𝐴c)
 On the shoulder on the rear end of the cone tip
 The affected area is 𝐴𝑐−𝐴𝑛, where 𝐴𝑛 is the cross
sectional area of the load cell

To correct for this pressure acting on the shoulder behind

the tip, the a-factor is used. The a-factor can be
determined by: 𝑎=𝐴𝑛/ 𝐴𝑐

 Cones can have a-factors anywhere between 0.6 and 0.9.

 An a-factor of 0.8 or above is usually considered to be good.
 Higher a-factors would make the cone vulnerable as the friction sleeve
would need to be very thin walled.
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Corrected Cone Resistance

• Correction of qc is required for Pore-water pressure measurements

• The corrected cone resistance qt can be obtained by:

𝑞𝑡=𝑞𝑐+(1−𝑎)×𝑢2

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Cone Resistances with Three Cones
Cone Resistance, qc (MPa) Corrected Cone Resistance, qt (MPa)

• Area factors ranging from 0.6 to 0.9

• The agreement in qt readings is quite remarkable
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Corrected Sleeve Friction
In most modern cones:
 Friction Sleeve has Equal end areas (Asb = Ast)
 b-factor of null
 The need for this corrections has been greatly reduced
The corrected sleeve friction can be obtained by:

𝑓𝑡=𝑓𝑠−(𝑢2×𝐴𝑠𝑏−𝑢3×𝐴𝑠𝑡)𝐴𝑠
 u3 is only seldom measured, this is usually not feasible.
 It is therefore recommended that this correction is not made if u3 (or u2 for that matter)
is not measured
 Occasionally, u3 is estimated based on correlations provided by the Swedish Geotechnical
Institute (SGI)
 In other cases, u2 and u3 are sometimes considered equal, allowing for a simplified
calculation using the b-factor:
𝑏=(𝐴𝑠𝑏−𝐴𝑠𝑡)⁄(𝐴𝑠)
Then the corrected sleeve friction is determined by: 𝑓𝑡=𝑓𝑠−𝑏×𝑢2
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a-factor, b-factor and Wall Thickness
 The pore pressure effect is also reduced by decreasing the wall
thickness of the friction sleeve ends (related to ‘b’-factor)
 The smaller the end areas the more vulnerable the cone will be
(related to ‘a’-factor)
 Hence manufacturers usually seek a compromise between favorable
a- and b-factors and overall robustness of the cone.

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CPTest Acquisition Software

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CPTask
Data
Processing
Software

Data can be
viewed as
tables and
graphic plots

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Dissipation Plots
Showing the pore pressure development and corresponding cone
resistance versus time (logarithmic scale)

1.6
Pore pressure (u) in MPa

1.4 D5-ud
1.2 D5-u0
1.0 Depth of test 25.07m
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
ui=1.4 MPa and uf = 0.046 MPa
0.0
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000
Time in seconds ( Absolute sampling time in seconds: 17250sec )

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Derived Parameters

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Net Cone resistance, Pore-water Pressure Ratio,
Normalized Cone Resistance, Normalized Friction Ratio

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 Depth as per RL
m

-2.72
-2.47
-2.22
Depth as per GL
m

9.00
Cone resistance (qc) MPa

11.466
8.75 12.102
8.50 6.2308
Sleeve friction (fs)
MPa

0.264
0.206
0.164
Dynamic pore pressure (ud)
Mpa

0.036
0.026
0.080

1.0 Inclination (I)

1.0
1.1

Degree
CPT Results in Tabular Format

Friction ratio (Rf) in %

2.408
1.859
2.778

Corrected cone resistance (qt) MPa

6.243

11.471
12.106

Equilibrium pore pressure (u0)

Mpa
0.041
0.039
0.036

Excess pore pressure (Δu)

MPa
0.044

-0.005
-0.012

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Graphical Presentation
of CPT Results

• qc-depth Plot
• fs-depth Plot
• Friction Ratio - Depth Plot

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CPT Correlations
• Equivalent SPT N60 values
• Relative Density
• Angle of Internal Friction
• Undrained Shear Strength.

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SCPT
• Seismic Cone
Penetration Test

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