A polynomial model for predicting shear wave velocity from cone penetration test data

Shear wave velocity (Vs) is known to be an essential soil parameter for site characterization purposes. Although shear wave velocity can be directly measured, indirect determination using common in-situ tests, entailing cone penetration test (CPT), are often preferred by engineers. In this paper, the relation between Vs and CPT parameters is reinvestigated and a new polynomial regression form is proposed to correlate shear wave velocity with cone tip resistance, sleeve friction, and vertical effective stress. Using a dataset obtained from several sites in Canada, Japan, Norway, Italy, and China, the performance of the presented correlation is appraised through comparison with the observed data as well as formerly published CPT-Vs equations. The results demonstrate that the suggested functional form provides a more reliable approach for predicting shear wave velocity and thus, can ostensibly be regarded as an improvement to the currently adopted practices.

Keywords:

shear wave velocity , cone penetration test , CPT-Vs model , small strain shear modulus , empirical correlation , ranking index