Development and Initial Testing of the Automated Military Cone Penetrometer.

Since the late 1950s, the US military forces and the US Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station WES have successfully used an abstract value called the Cone Index CI as an indication of soil strength. The CI is the backbone in establishing the current empirical soil-vehicle relationship for predicting the ability of a soil to support sustained ground oriented military vehicle traffic. The militarys conventional proving ring cone penetrometer is used to measure a soils CI. Recent developments have been directed to analytical modeling of the soil-vehicle relationship. This modeling technique uses the fundamental engineering properties of a soil to establish this relationship. Because of the extensive database of CI values, WES developed a mathematical model which led to development of theoretical equations which correlate CI with the fundamental engineering properties of a soil. These equations present a means by which CI can be predicted based on the engineering properties exhibited by a soil. These predicted values of CI can then be used to establish the soil-vehicle relationship. This report presents a general background study of military trafficability studies and the need for initial development and validation testing of an automated military cone penetrometer system.