A cone penetration test database for multiple thin-layer correction procedure development

Abstract

Cone penetration tests (CPTs) are a commonly used in situ method to characterize soil. The recorded data are used for various applications, including earthquake-induced liquefaction evaluation. However, data recorded at a given depth in a CPT sounding are influenced by the properties of all the soil that falls within the zone of influence around the cone tip rather than only the soil at that particular depth. This causes data to be blurred or averaged in layered zones, a phenomenon referred to as multiple thin-layer effects. Multiple thin-layer effects can result in the inaccurate characterization of the thickness and stiffness of thin, interbedded layers. Correction procedures have been proposed to adjust CPT tip resistance for multiple thin-layer effects, but many procedures become less effective as layer thickness decreases. To compare or improve these procedures and to develop new ones, it is critical to have pairs of measured tip resistance ( q m) and true tip resistance ( q t) data, where q m is the tip resistance recorded by the CPT in a layered profile, and q t represents the tip resistance that would be measured in the profile absent of multiple thin-layer effects. Unfortunately, data sets containing q m and q t pairs are extremely rare. Accordingly, this article presents a unique database containing laboratory and numerically generated CPT data from 49 highly interlayered soil profiles. Both q m and q t are provided for each profile. An accompanying Jupyter notebook is provided to facilitate the use of the data and prepare them for future statistical learning (or other) applications to support multiple thin-layer correction procedure development.