However, these procedures are still too expensive to be used in routine practice. Supplementary data, coming from laboratory soil tests, are usually required to identify stratigraphy, grain size distribution, damping properties, etc. Recently, procedures have been proposed to identify a number of soil properties directly from the results of cone penetration type tests, without relying on laboratory soil tests. However, it should be pointed out that the current data base pertaining to these two types of field tests is still very limited and the available empirical correlations with various soil properties do not cover a wide range of soil types.
Various methods are available for in-situ evaluation of geotechnical properties.
Both types of tests have good applicability in estimating various soil properties, like moduli, strength, and liquefaction resistance. The results of penetration type soil tests represent the response of soil to an imposed deformation. Various theories have been developed to express analytical dependence between cone tip resistance and soil strength. It seems however that there is currently no satisfactory general solution for interpreting cone test results, therefore empirical correlations are still mainly used to derive soil properties. Numerous such correlations between the results of standard penetration and cone penetration tests and various soil properties have been developed.