3rd International Symposium on Cone Penetration Testing, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA - 2014

Mini-cone configured with temperature-compensated circuit

Hyung-Koo Yoon
Department of Geotechnical Disaster Prevention Engineering, Daejeon University, Daejeon, Korea

Yong-Hoon Byun, Sang Yeob Kim & Jong-Sub Lee

School of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea

ABSTRACT: The objective of this paper is to introduce a new method for configuring a temperaturecompensated circuit in a mini-cone. To compare the new temperature-compensated mini-cone with a conventional half-bridge-circuit cone, the mini-cone is designed to have a diameter of 15 mm, with a projected area of 1.76 cm2. The full-bridge temperature-compensated circuit of the new mini-cone is configured
using an extension rod behind the connection part of the rod to install a total of four strain gauges. Two
strain gauges are attached to the mechanical resistance measuring part, and the other two gauges are installed on the extended part. In addition, a half-bridge circuit is also configured in the mini-cone to compare the temperature variation effects. The theoretical background and results of an experimental study
show that the suggested method is less affected by temperature variation than the previous method. Furthermore, the measured mechanical resistances obtained by the temperature-compensated circuit are more
reliable and reasonable. This study demonstrates that the temperature-compensated circuit may be a useful
technique for obtaining high-quality mechanical resistance measurements using small mini-cones.

1 INTRODUCTION
A cone penetration test (CPT) has been used to characterize the subsurface ground with high resolution
(Lunne et al. 1997). Moreover, the standard cone penetrometer is often used to detect thin-layered sand
seams, which can be critical to the hydraulic permeability of the soil (Titi et al. 2000; Hird et al. 2003).
However, the resolution of the standard cone, which has a diameter of 35.7 mm, may not be sufficient for
detecting the thickness of a very thin sand seams because of the down drag and scale effects. For that reason, small mini-cones have been developed to overcome the low resolution and accuracy of the standard
cone. Tumay et al. (1998) and Hird et al. (2003) introduced mini-cones with diameters of 12.7 mm and
11.3 mm, respectively. In addition, Lee et al. (2009) and Shin et al. (2009) studied the detection of layered
soil and the smear zone induced by a prefabricated vertical drain using micro-cones with a diameter of 5.0
mm. Later, based on fiber optic sensors, ultra-small cones with diameters of 35 mm were developed by
Kim et al. (2010).
Strain gauges have been widely used in cone penetrometers, to measure the mechanical resistance of
soils. Based on the minute strain of the cone, a Wheatstone bridge circuit configured with four strain
gauges is often adopted to amplify the output voltage. A full-bridge circuit using four strain gauges is especially recommended for obtaining reliable data. However, a half-bridge circuit using two strain gauges
has often been applied in the small mini-cones because of their limited attachment areas. The output volt225

age of a half-bridge circuit can be easily affected by a change in temperature and the vibration of a lead
wire.
The objective of this paper is to suggest a new method for configuring a full-bridge circuit in a small
mini-cone. The paper introduces the theoretical relationship between the output voltage and the strain in
the Wheatstone bridge circuit. In addition, the design of a new mini-cone and the procedure for a laboratory test are described. Finally, the results of the laboratory tests are discussed.
2 WHEATSTONE BRIDGES
A Wheatstone bridge consisting of four strain gauges can amplify a minute output voltage. The output
voltage of the circuit is calculated using the resistance of each strain gauge.
Vout (

R1
R4

) Vin
R1 R2 R3 R4

(1)

where R1, R2, R3, and R4 denote the electrical resistances of the strain gauges. Vin and Vout denote the input and output voltages of the circuit, respectively. Equation (1) can be rearranged as equation (2) by using the gauge factor (Ks) and strain () of every strain gauge. Thus, equation (2) shows that the output
voltage is a function of every strain, with a constant input voltage and gauge factor.
Vout

Vin
K s ( 1 2 3 4 )
4

(2)

3 MINI-CONE
The new mini-cone was developed to configure the four strain gauges in the measurement area. The minicone has basically a conical shape with an apex angel of 60 o. The diameter of the mini-cone is 15 mm,
and the length of the sleeve friction is determined to be 56 mm when considering the ratio between the
projected cross-sectional area and the fiction sleeve area (1:15) of a standard cone penetrometer.
The rod of the mini-cone extends approximately 54 mm (diameter: 10 mm) behind the connection part
to install the full-bridge circuit in the same area, as shown in Figure 1. Thus, the four strain gauges are attached to the loading part, and other two strain gauges are also applied to the extra area for configuring the
conventional half-bridge circuit. In the full-bridge circuit, the stress and temperature changes affect strain
gauges SG1 and SG3, whereas only the temperature change influences strain gauges SG2 and SG4. Equation (3) theoretically explains how the stress and temperature changes are reflected in this system.
Vout

R R1T R2T R3 S R3T R4T

R1 R2
( 1S

) Vin
2
R1
R2
R3
R4
( R1 R2 )

(3)

where R1, R2, R3, and R4 denote the electrical resistances of the strain gauges. R1S and R3S are the electrical resistance changes of the strain gauges due to applied stresses. R1T, R2T, R3T, and R4T are the electrical
resistance changes of the strain gauges with temperature changes. Equation (3) shows that the suggested
technique eliminates the temperature effects through the relationships between R1T, R2T, R3T, and
R4T under the same electrical resistance for every strain gauge (R1, R2, R3, and R4).

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4 MEASUREMENT SYSTEM
A foil-type strain gauge is adopted as a transducer, which has an electrical resistance of 120 . A gauge
length of 1 mm is used to make it easier to attach the strain gauge in an extremely small area. A DC power
supply and multimeter are used to apply a constant input voltage and obtain the change in the output voltage, respectively. Figure 2 shows the measurement system used to obtain data. In this study, the input
voltage was fixed at 1.0 V because an input voltage of 1.0 V produces a stable output voltage without external stresses (Lee et al. 2009).
13 mm

56mm

15mm

15mm

54mm

10mm

600
Figure 1. Mini-cone. A and C are the strain gauges for configuring the half-bridge circuit. B and D are the strain
gauges for configuring the full-bridge circuit.
Digital Multimeter

DC Power supply
-1.0 V

+1.0

0.123456 V

SG1

SG4

Full-bridge circuit
SG2

SG3

Figure 2. Measurement system.

5 APPLICATIONS
In saturated cohesionless soil, dynamic loading leads to excess pore-water pressure. When the pore-water
pressure is dissipated, the strength of the soil increases. A 320 mm 300 mm 600 mm (outer diameter
inner diameter height) acrylic tank was used to fabricate a dense soil sample. The tank was impacted by
a 100-N pendulum hammer to generate dynamic loading. The soil height before each impact was recorded
to calculate the relative density. The mini-cone was used to penetrate the soil, and the measured soil
strengths based on the half-bridge and full-bridge circuits were compared. A penetration rate of 1 mm/s
was selected by referring to a previous study (Yoon et al. 2011).
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The mini-cone was pushed into the saturated soil to measure the cone tip resistance and sleeve friction.
Figure 3 shows the measured data before impact and after 40 impacts. The mechanical resistance through
the full-bridge circuit increased with the depth. However, the soil strength based on the half-bridge circuit
shows an unreasonably high variation with depth. Moreover, negative and zero values were recorded as a
result of temperature variation and lead wire vibration.
(a)
0

Depth

(b)

qc [kPa]
100

200

300

(c)

fs [kPa]
10

20

30

(d)

qc [kPa]
400 800 1200

fs [kPa]
0

50

50

50

50

100

100

100

100

150

150

150

150

200

200

200

200

250

250

250

250

300

300

300

300

350

350

350

350

30

60

90

Figure 3. Penetration results: (a) cone tip resistance before impact; (b) sleeve friction before impact; (c) cone tip resistance after 40 impacts; (d) sleeve fiction after 40 impacts (straight line and dotted line denote measured values
based on full-bridge and half-bridge circuits, respectively).

According to the increase in the number of impacts, the relative density increases from 27% before impact to 63% after 90 impacts. Figure 4 shows the measured cone tip resistance and sleeve friction at a
depth of 250 mm with the number of impacts. The cone tip resistance and sleeve friction based on the fullbridge circuit continuously increase from 130 kPa to 800 kPa and from 10 kPa to 50 kPa, respectively.
The values measured using the half-bridge circuit, however, show negative and fluctuating values. These
results verify that the full-bridge circuit produces reasonable and reliable data with less temperature effect
and environmental disturbance.
(a)

(b)
90

fs [kPa]

qc [kPa]

900
600
300

60
30
0

0
-300

-30

25

50

75

100

25

50

75

100

Impact number

Impact number

Figure 4. Mechanical resistance versus impact number at depth of 250 mm: (a) cone tip resistance and (b) sleeve
friction.
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6 CONCLUSION
A mini-cone with an extended rod for configuring a full-bridge circuit was introduced in this study. The
full-bridge circuit was installed to increase the resolution and reliability of the measured mechanical
strength. Two strain gauges were attached to the loading rod, and the remaining two strain gauges were
glued to the extended rod. A half-bridge circuit was also configured on the mini-cone to compare the
measured values based on the full-bridge and half-bridge circuits. Penetration tests were performed to verify the suggested circuit. The measured mechanical strength based on the full-bridge circuit reasonably increased with an increase in the number of impacts (i.e. soil densification). However, the values measured
using the half-bridge circuit showed an unreasonable trend and high variation. Thus, the use of an extended rod to accommodate a full-bridge circuit in a mini-cone is recommended to obtain reliable values.
7 ACKNOWELDGEMETNS
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government(MSIP) (NRF-2011-0018110).

8 REFERENCES
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