STATIC CONE PENETRATION TEST :

This Indian Standard ( Part III ) ( First Revision ) was adopted by

the Indian Standards Institution on 22 December 1976, after the draft
finalized by the Soil Engineering Sectional Committee had been approved
by the Civil Engineering Division Council.
1.Among the field sounding tests the static cone test is a valuable
method of recording variation in the in situ penetration resistance of soils,
in cases where the in situ density is disturbed by boring operations, thus
making the standard penetration test unreliable especially under water.
The results of the test are also useful in determining the bearing capacity
of the soil at various depths below the ground level. In addition to
bearing capacity values it is also possible to determine by this test the
skin friction values used for the determination of the required lengths of
piles in a given situation. The static cone teq is most successful in soft
or loose soils like silty sands, loose sands, layered deposits of sands, silts and clays as well as
in clayey deposits.
2.Experience indicates that a complete static cone penetration test
up to depths of 15 to 20 m can be completed in a day with manual
operations of the equipment, making it one of the inexpensive and .fast
methods of sounding available for investigation; in fact, in Europe it is
invariably used for exploratory stage of investigations when both time
and money are at a premium.. In areas where some information
regarding the foundation strata is already available, the use of test piles
and loading tests -thereof can be avoided by conducting static cone
penetration tests.
3. This standard was first published in 1971. In this revision several
changes have been made taking into consideration the experience gained
in conducting the test and in the manufacture of the equipment. The
essential requirements of the friction jacket have been added; tolerances
have been indicated for the essential requirements; a rate of travel has
been specified for the engine driven equipment. Opportunity has also
been taken to give the requirements and example in SI units.

1. SCOPE:
This standard ( Part III ) covers the procedure for the determination
of the cone resistance and friction resistance of soil at various depths
below ground surface by the static cone method.
This standard gives the procedure for the test only and certain
essential details of the equipment but does not include complete design
of the equipment.

EQUIPMENT:
Steel Cone - The cone shall be of suitable steel with its tip hardened.
It shall have an apex angle of SO; f 15 minutes and overall base
diameter of 35.7 o*. 1 mm giving a cross-sectional area of 10 cm a
( see Fig. 1 ). The cone shall be so designed as to prevent the intrusion
ofsoil particles into the moving parts of the cone assembly.

FRICTION JACKET: the friction jacket should be of high carbon steel and of dimension as
shown in figure.

Sounding Rod - Steel rod of 15 mm diameter which can be

extended with additional rods of 1 m each in length The sounding rod
should be such that the base of the cone mentioned in 2.1 could be
attached to it.
Mantle Tube - The mantle tube shall be of steel and is meant for
guiding the sounding rod which goes through the mantle tube. The
mantle tube should be in length of one metre with flush coupling. The
diameter of the mantle tube may be non-uniform or uniform (see Fig. 3).
In the manually operated equipment, for ease of operations, the nonuniform
mantle tube is generally used.

Driving Mechanism - The driving mechanism should have a

capacity of 2 to 3 tonnes for the manually operated equipment and
10 tonnes for the mechanically operated equipment. The driving
mechanism essentially consists of a rack and pinion arrangement operated
by a winch. The reaction for the thrust may be obtained by suitable devices
capable of taking loads greater than the capacity of the equipment.
The hand-operated winch may be provided with handles on
both sides of the driving frame to facilitate driving by four persons for
loads greater than 2000 kg. The winch should be equipped for two
speeds controlled by 2 gears. The gear should be capable of being operated
in slow and fast positions for penetration oi withdrawal of the conefriction

jacket assembly.
For the engine driven equipment the rate of travel should be such
that the penetration obtained in the soil during the test is between 1 to
l-5 cm/s.
Measuring Equipment - The sounding apparatus should be
provided with hydraulically operated measuring device by which the
pressure developed is indicated on the gauges. The cross-sectional area
of the plunger of the measuring head may be either 10 cm ( same as
the cross-sectional area of the cone ) or 20 cm . Two pressure gauges
should be connected to the driving head, one for high pressure and the
other for low pressure, as follows for the plunger area of 20 cm.
Other Requirements of the Equipment The equipment shall
be so desiered as to allow for pushing into the ground the cone alone,
and the friction jacket fitted immediately above the cone and the cone
together, alternatively, through depths of a minimum of 35 mm each,
each time. Provision shall also be made to enable the entire assembly to
be advanced together continuously if skin friction readings are not
required to be determined separately.
PROCEDURE:
Basically the test procedure for determining the static cone and
frictional resistances conksts of pushing the cone alone through the soil
strata to be tested, then the cone and the friction jacket, and finally the
entire assembly in sequence and noting the respective resistance in the
first two cases. The cone is pushed through a distance in accordance
with the design of the equipment ( see 2.7 ) and the need for the substrata
and the cone resistance noted. Thereafter, the cone and the friction
jacket are pushed together for a distance depending upon the design of
the cone and friction jacket assembly and the combined value of cone
and friction resistance noted. This procedure is repeated at predetermined
intervals. The set up for the test is illustrated in Fig. 4.
3.2 The equipment shall be securely anchored to the ground at the test
pcint for obtaining the required reaction.
3.2.1 The rack of the driving mechanism shall be brought to the top
most position. The cone-friction jacket assembly shall be connected to
the first sounding rod and the mantle tube. This assembly shall be
positioned over the test point through the mantle tube guide a,nd held
vertically. The plunger of the driving mechanism shall be brought down
so as to rest against the protruding sounding rod.
3.2.2 For obtaining the cone resistance, the sounding rod only shall
be pushed. Switching the gear clutch to the slow position, the drive
handle shall be operated at a steady rate of 1 cm/s approximately ( see
Note ) so as to advance the cone only to a depth which is possible with
the cone assembly available ( see 2.7 ). During this pushing, the mean
value of the resistance as indicated by the Bourdon gauges shall be noted
ignoring erratic changes.

N0TE - In order to standardize the test procedure a rate of 1 cm/s has been specified.
Tests conduct-d at slower rates ( &5 cm/s and l/3 cm/s ) have shown that in
these of both cohesive and non-cohesive soils the effect of the time-rate of penetration
on the cone resistance was not appreciable within the limits of these rates. Tests
conducted at faster rates ( 2 cm/s and 3 cm/s ) have shown the following c&cts
a) For *cohesive soils with cone resistance of above I 000 k W/ms ( 10 kgf/cm* )
the effects of these rates were not significant;
b) For cohesive soils with cone resistance of 400 kX/m* ( 4 kgf/cm* ) and lower,
the values decreased appreciably with increase in the rate of penetration;
and
c) For non-cohesive soils with cone resistance varying from 1500 to 8 000 kN/m*
( 15 to 80 kgf/cm* ), the cone resistance increased by about 20 percent.

Forfinding the combined cone and friction resistance of the soil

the sounding rod shall be pushed to the extent the cone has been pushed
as in above at the rate of 1 cm/s ( see Note under 3.2.2 ) noting the mean
resistance on the gauges, ignoring erratic changes. Tilesequence of

operations is illustrated in Fig.

The procedure given should be repeated after

pushing the combined cone-friction jacket and mantle tube assembly to
the next depth at which the cone and friction resistance values are
required. Extension sounding rods and mantle tubes should be added
after every one metre of pushing as the test proceeds. Alternatively, the
resistances may be determined continuously, if so desired.
after reaching the deepest point of investigation the entire assembly
should be extracted out of the soil by the special operations provided for
in the equipment.
RECORDS AND CALCULATIONS:
The results of the test shall be tabulated suitably. A recommended
pro forma for this purpose with an example is given in Appendix A. The
results should also be presented graphically in two graphs, one showing
the cone resistance in kN/m2 ( kgf/cm ) with depth in metres and the
other showing friction resistance in kN/m ( kgf/cm2 ) with depth in
metres together with a bore hole log.

The cone resistance shall be corrected for the dead weight of the
cone and sounding rods in use. The combined cone and friction resistance
shall be corrected for the dead weight of the cone, friction jacket and
sounding rods. These values shall also be corrected for the ratio of ram
area to the base area of the cone.
Static-cone resistance*
Correction:
1) Mass of cone, m = 1 1 kg*
2) Mass of each
sounding rod, ml = 1.5 kg*
3) Cone area at
base, b = 10 cm2
4) Plunger area

m n m1

10
m
5) Correction = (m+nm1) 10kN/
+
factor ( to be added to the 10gauge: reading )

kgf / c m

where,
n = the number of rods in use.
NOTEIfplunger area is 20 cm* and base area of cone is IO ems,
the
gauge readings should be multiplied by the ratio of the plunger
area to the arLa
of the base of the cone, that is 2.
Depth Below
Value of Cone
Ground Level
Resistance
(1)
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
l.20
1.40
1.60
1.80

Gauge Reading kN /m2

( kgf/cm )
(2)
2 150 ( 22.00 )
900 ( 9.00 )
800 ( 8.00 )
1 000 ( 10.00 )
400 ( 4.00 )
500 ( 5.00 )
550 ( 5.50 )
800 ( 8.00)
450 ( 4.50 )

Friction resistance measured at particular depths with the help of

friction jacket attached to the static cone
Correction :

I ) Mass of friction jacket = tn/ kg

2 ) Area of surface of friction

Corrected
Penetration
kN/m ( kgf/cm2 )
(3)
2 176 ( 22.26 )
926 ( 9.26 )
826 ( 8.26 )
1 026 ( 10.26 )
426 ( 4.26 )
541 ( 5.41 )
591 ( 5.91 )
841 ( 8.41 )
491 ( 4.91 )

jacket, u = f dh ems
where,
d = outer diameter of friction jacket, and
h = length of friction jacket.
3 ) Cone area at base, b = 10 cm
100 m f
a

kN / m

kgf / cm

4) correction factor =
(to be added)
= 1kN/m (0.01kgf/cm)