• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2009.03a
• /
• pp.349-360
• /
• 2009

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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2010.09a
• /
• pp.269-281
• /
• 2010

The cone penetration test(CPT) has been increasingly used for in situ site characterization. However, the use of CPT is often limited due to specific site conditions depending on the cone size, geometry, and capacity of the CPT system used. In South Korea, it has generally been considered that the CPT could be satisfactorily performed only in soft soils. Louisiana State University/ Louisiana Transportation Research Center has implemented a field-rugged continuous intrusion miniature cone penetration test (CIMCPT) system since the 1990s. The miniature cone penetrometer of the CIMCPT system has a cross-sectional cone area of $2cm^2$ allowing finer soil profiles compared to the standard $10cm^2$. The reduced cross-sectional area also enables a system capacity reduction leading to cost saving and ease in maintenance. In addition, the continuous intrusion mechanism allows fast and economic site investigations. Samsung C&T Corporation has recently implemented a similar CIMCPT system. In this study, case studies on the field application of Samsung CIMCPT system for the last 2 years are presented to illustrate its performance investigation and its usefulness and limitation. Results of the case studies show that the CIMCPT system can be applied to soils with cone tip resistance($q_c$) values up to about 30MPa and allows a reliable and useful way to characterize soft soils. The results also show that the rod buckling limits the investigation depth by the system and the large contact pressure of the CIMCPT truck prevents the use of the system at sites with soft surface soils. According to the results of the case studies, the Samsung CIMCPT system has been being upgraded with a miniature cone with a longer rod, a crawler-type transportation system, a pre-boring system, and so on.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.631-642
• /
• 2013

The standard CPT(Cone Penetration Test), which can be easily performed to investigate in-situ soil engineering properties, has been widely used. CPT are also widely being utilized in centrifuge model tests. In this study, a miniature cone with 10mm diameter was developed and its applicability in the centrifuge was evaluated. The developed miniature cone was equipped with a four degree-of-freedom in-flight robot. A series of cone penetration tests was performed under four centrifuge acceleration levels. As results, the cone resistances measured at the same confining stress within shallow penetration depth were affected by the centrifugal accelerations. The critical depth was proportional to the cone diameter and relative density. Cone resistances results below the critical depth and soil parameters obtained from the laboratory tests were compared with those by previously proposed empirical relations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2007.09a
• /
• pp.611-622
• /
• 2007

In the design and construction of the coastal/offshore structures, it is very important to evaluate the geotechnical characteristics of marine soils, which support the structures. Although the offshore site investigation is much more difficult than onshore, safe and precise jobs have not been accomplished in Korea because of the insufficiency of the test equipments especially for the site with deep water depth. The main objective of this study is to develop a new type of marine cone penetration testing(CPT) system, which can be utilized to even deep sea and high depth of soil layer. The system is one of seabed types and employs the conventional cone, which shows more reliable results than miniature cone. The most important parts of the marine CPT including continuous rod system, cone penetration system with wheel drive, automatic cone rod assembly/dissembly system etc., were designed and manufactured. Some tests to verify the developed marine CPT system were performed at both onshore and offshore sites as well as mechanical test in laboratory. The test results show the consistent and promising performance of the new equipment, and thereafter the system would be applicable to various sites with practical/economical advantages.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.33 no.6
• /
• pp.2359-2368
• /
• 2013

Cone penetration tests (CPTs) have been increasingly used for site characterizations. However, the site investigations using CPTs are often limited due to soil conditions depending on the cone size and capacity of the CPT system. The small sectional area of a miniature cone improves the applicability of the CPT system due to the increased capacity of the CPT system. A continuous intrusion system using a coiled rod allows fast and cost effective site investigation. In this study, the performance of the continuous intrusion miniature cone penetration test (CIMCPT) system has been evaluated by comparison tests with the standard CPT system at several construction sites in Korea. The results show that the CIMCPT system has a same performance with the CPT system and has advantages on the mobility and applicability. According to field verification tests for scale effect evaluation, the cone tip resistance evaluated by CIMCPT overestimates by 10% comparing to standard CPTs. A crawler mounted with the CIMCPT system has been implemented to improve accessibility to soft ground, and has shown improvement over the truck type CIMCPT system. Therefore, the improved CIMCPT system can be utilized as a cost effective and highly reliable soil investigation methodology to detect the depth of soft ground and to evaluate soil classification.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2009.03a
• /
• pp.331-340
• /
• 2009

This study evaluates the relationship between cone tip resistance ($q_c$) and small-strain shear modulus ($G_{max}$) of cemented sand. For this purpose, a series of miniature cone penetration and bender element tests are performed in calibration chamber specimens with various gypsum contents. Experimental results show that both $q_c$ and $G_{max}$ of sand increase with increasing cementation level as well as relative density and vertical confining stress. However, the relative density and vertical confining stress has more significant influence on $G_{max}$ and $q_c$ of uncemented sand than those of cemented sand. It is observed that the $G_{max}/q_c$ ratio of cemented sand decreases with increasing relative density. This result means that state variables have more affect on $q_c$ than $G_{max}$ of cemented sand. Test results also show that the effect of vertical stress on $G_{max}-q_c$ relation is reduced by cementation effect.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.31 no.1C
• /
• pp.19-27
• /
• 2011

This paper evaluates the applicability of wave-based nondestructive methodologies and a penetration test for compaction quality measurements during road construction. To evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of compacted subgrade soil layers, soil stiffness gauge (SSG), time domain reflectometry (TDR), and miniature electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers were used to nondestructively evaluate the soil response during and after compaction and dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP) profiles were used to evaluate the soil shear strength after compaction was completed. At the field site, two types of soils were compacted with four different compaction equipments and energies. Field testing results indicate that soil parameters evaluated by different testing methods, which are SSG, TDR, MEMS accelerometer, and DCP, are highly correlated. In addition, it is shown that the physical and mechanical tests deployed in this study can be used as alternative methods to the conventional compaction quality evaluation methods when assessing the overall quality and the engineering response of compacted lifts.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.5-16
• /
• 2005

Tn this study, model soil deposits are prepared in large test chambers to minimize the scale effects. Also, slurry of mixture containing 50 percent kaolin clay and 50 percent silica has been consolidated to simulate the process of natural soil deposit formation and to reduce the consolidation time. To provide a more detailed description of varying soil properties along the soil profile of model clay deposits and to compare the in-situ test results with those from prototype tests, miniature in-situ tests, including vane shear, piezoprobe, and cone penetration tests were conducted in each of the clay deposits. The current results indicate that consistent soil deposits were prepared for the current and previous test programs. Also, reasonable predicting methods of prototype behavior based on model in-situ test results were suggested in this study by examining differences between the test results from both the model and prototype tests.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.23-32
• /
• 2013

In order to evaluate the bearing capacity behaviour of a monopod suction bucket foundation for an offshore wind tower at the western sea of Korea, a centrifuge load test and numerical analyses were performed. The monopod bucket foundation was designed to be installed in a silty sand layer. The model soil was prepared to simulate a target site by using soil samples having similar properties and controlling relative density. In-flight miniature cone penetration test and bender element array were used to confirm that the model soil had represented the target site conditions. The load - rotation curve of the centrifuge load test was analysed. A series of numerical analyses were performed to validate the experimental conditions. Self-weight of the model, distance to the boundary and elastic modulus of the soil layer were varied to study their effects on the load - rotation curves.