Abstract Summary
Current standards like ISO 14837-32:2015 or DIN EN 1998-1/NA:2021 allow for using correlations between the results of in-situ soil penetration tests and shear wave velocity (or shear modulus) to determine soil properties to be used in dynamic analyses. While the ISO standard even provides some recommendation on the specific correlation to be used, the DIN standard does not provide any guidance. Due to the statistical nature of such correlations their general applicability has to be verified. We collected data sets from test sites from Germany as well as New Zealand at which cone penetration tests (CPT) as well as seismic methods were conducted. These sites comprised sandy soils as well as clayey soils, mixed soils as well as glacial soils. We compare the results of several correlations between CPT results and shear wave velocity applied to the in-situ results found in the literature. The accuracy of such correlations is assessed with respect to the accuracy of seismic in-situ tests. It turns out the for clean sands such correlations between CPT and Vs have a similar order of variability as seismic in-situ tests conducted at the same site. The higher the fines portion of the soil, the higher the variability of the statistical correlations, and consequently the less the general applicability. For glacial soils and other special soil types usage of statistical correlations to determine dynamic soil properties is not recommended.
