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I have been reading about DCP and watched a video of how it is done (the video is not in English). But there are some things that are still unclear and I would greatly appreciate some help and clarification. I have these questions:

  1. Is there a standard number of times that the hammer must be dropped?
  2. What is recorded after an $x$ number of hammer drops?
    • Lat/long coordinates of where test occurred?
    • How far the metal head penetrated the ground (in cm)?
  3. What happens to that data? What does it correlate with to give us the strength of the ground? What is that strength measured in?
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  • $\begingroup$ Why don't you just ask the people from your first link? Also, that link refers to the following standard: BS 1377 : Soils for civil engineering purposes, part 4. It's publicly downloadable, just Google it. $\endgroup$
    – Sanchises
    Commented Jun 11, 2015 at 19:25

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Standard

The official description of the test can be found in one of the following depending on your location of interest:

These should have all of the answers that you could possibly want. I'll answer your questions directly though.

Questions

  1. Is there a standard number of times that the hammer must be dropped?

Typically the test is run continuously from the surface of the ground to a depth of interest. It could also be run from the bottom of a drilled hole if the soil layers above that point are not of interest.

  1. What is recorded after an xx number of hammer drops?

The depth of penetration is recorded after each drop. The test is continuous from beginning to end. The penetration depth should be continuously increasing as the test progresses. That is unless refusal is reached for some reason.

  1. What happens to that data? What does it correlate with to give us the strength of the ground? What is that strength measured in?

Yes, there are various conversion equations to convert the number into other values. This research report shows some comparisons.

Some typical comparisons are California Bearing Ratio (CBR) and density. These comparisons are based off of best fits of experimental data and are dependent on soil type.

In general think of the Dynamic Cone Penetration Test as a cheap and quick check of subgrade strength.

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