Screw plate and cone penetrometer as a field testing system

The screw plate test has been found to be useful for establishing drained and undrained strength and compressibility parameters for soils. This paper outlines results of correlations between the screw plate test and the cone penetrometer in a variety of soil types in South Australia. The results have indicated that, in general, the level of reliability associated with ratios such as e/q(sub)c is low for both drained and undrained conditions. It is suggested that the cone may be used to great advantage in parallel with the screw plate to establish on site correlations. Once established from relatively few screw plate tests these correlations may be extended throughout the site using a wider program of cone penetration tests (a).