The soil coulterometer is an “on‐the‐go” electro‐mechanical system which collects impedance force data at multiple depths using an oscillating coulter. During the initial testing (summer 2006), only vertical soil impedance force data was collected using a pressure sensor. To improve the performance of the coulterometer, an extended octagonal ring transducer was integrated into the system to col...

U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station (WES) investigators have designed, fabricated, and demonstrated a cone penetrometer sensor for subsurface in situ field screening based on LIBS. The LIBS probe (patent pending) presented here is one of a suite of contaminant and geophysical probes developed by the WES Site Characterization and Analysis Penetrometer System (SCAPS) program. The LIBS...

[1] This study provides a fast and easy‐to‐apply method to estimate threshold friction velocity (TFV) of wind erosion in the field. Wind tunnel experiments and a variety of ground measurements including air gun, pocket penetrometer, torvane, and roughness chain were conducted in Moab, Utah and cross‐validated in the Mojave Desert, California. Patterns between TFV and ground measurements were ex...

Precise measurements of snow structural parameters and stratigraphy are essential to understand and model snow physical processes, in particular with respect to avalanche formation. However, most snow measurements are limited in spatial resolution and by extensive measurement times, and therefore lack practicability for avalanche professionals. The snow micro-penetrometer (SMP), a portable, hig...

Materials that will be used to construct an in situ, on-line purging system for the cone penetrometer were evaluated. Transfer efficiencies for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) through stainless steel, nickel, aluminum, and Teflon® tubings were determined using a gas-phase mixture of VOCs containing trichloromethane, tetrachloromethane, 1,1,1- trichloroethane, tetrachloroethene, hexane, benzen...

Pit latrines can provide improved household sanitation, but without effective and inexpensive emptying options, they are often abandoned once full and may pose a public health threat. Emptying techniques can be difficult, as the sludge contents of each pit latrine are different. The design of effective emptying techniques (e.g., pumps) is limited by a lack of data characterizing typical in situ...

For silage production, high bulk density (BD) is critical to minimize aerobic deterioration facilitated by oxygen intrusion. To precisely assess packing quality for bunker silos, there is a desire to visualize the BD distribution within the silage. In this study, a penetrometer-based mapping system was developed. The data processing included filtering of the penetration friction component (PFC)...

A computer simulation of cone penetration in layered soil was carried out using axisymmetric finite element (FE) to investigate soil deformation and soil hardpan prediction during cone penetration. The FE analysis was performed in ABAQUS, commercially available FE package. Soil was considered as a non­ linear elastic plastic material modeled using Drucker Prager material model with hardening op...