The Field Application of Miniature Cone Penetration Test System in Korea

소형콘관입시험(Miniature Cone Penetration Test)의 국내현장 적용

The cone penetration test(CPT) has gained its popularity in site characterization indebted by its reliability, speed, economy, and automatic measurement system since its development in the 1930s. The CPT results, commonly consisting of cone tip resistance, sleeve friction, and pore water pressure measurements, allow us to classify soils as well as to reveal their engineering characteristics. The site condition at which the CPT is allowable is often dependent on the capacity of a CPT system. In Korea, it has been considered that the CPT could be appled only to soft soils in most cases because CPT systems available for stiff soils are very rare due to their expensive procurement and maintenance cost. Luoisiana Transportation Research Center(LTRC) has developed and implemented a field-rugged continuous intrusion miniature cone penetration test(CIMCPT) system since the late 1990s. The miniature cone penetrometer has a sectional cone area of $2cm^2$ allowing system capacity reduction compared to the standard $10cm^2$ cone penetrometer. The continuous intrusion mechanism allows fast and economic site investigation. Samsung Engineering & Construction has recently developed and implemented a similar CIMCPT system based on its original version developed in LTRC. The performance of the Samsung CIMCPT system has been investigated by calibration with the standard CPT system at a well-characterized test site in Pusan, Korea. In addition, scale effect between the miniature cone penetrometer and the standard cone penetrometer has been investigated by comparing the field test results using the both systems.