Development of a new dynamic lightweight penetrometer for the determination of mechanical properties of fine-grained soils

Dynamic cone penetrometer is mainly used as an in situ device and laboratory application, in a mould, has rarely been reported due to the confining effect. In this study, a dynamic lightweight cone penetrometer that can be used in a CBR (California bearing ratio) mould in the laboratory as well as in the field, with similar results, was developed. The results show that the influence of the mould confinement can be eliminated when the hammer mass is 2.25 kg. A strong correlation was found between CBR values and the new dynamic lightweight penetrometer index, for six fine-grained soil samples, with different moisture contents, used in this study.