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Introduction

At the 4th International Conference on Soil Mechanice and Foundation Engineering in London in 1957 a subcoramittee was organ! zed for the purpose of studying stat-ic and dynamie penetration tests with a view to their standardization. It was not possible at that time to reach an agree-rnent within the committee on suitable standards for the different tests, par-ticularly the standard penetration test (SPT). A European Subcommittee was there-fore appointed at the 6th Intemational Conference in Montreal in 1965 with Dr H Zweck as chairman with the task to investigate the possibility to standard-ize the penetration testing methods com-monly used in Europę.

In order to initiate and to stimulate, e.g._#the work on standardization and be-cause of the rapid development of penetration testing during the last few years, the national Swedish Committee on Penetration Testing suggested in 1973 that a European symposiura on penetration testing should be arranged in Stockholm in 1974 with the following aims

•    to document the use of penetration tests in soil investigations in different countries

•    to outline areas where further re-search is desirable

•    to stimulate the standardization of commonly used penetration testing methods, and

•    to provide guidelines for futurę developments

The proposal was discussed with Professor E.E. de Beer, at that time ISSMFE Vice President for Europę, during a visit to Stockholm in 1972. The proposed plan was approved with minor modifications.

Ali national geotechnical societies in Europę were invited in 1972 to take part in the symposium as well as a few societies outside of Europę with special in-terests in penetration testing. It was, however, necessary to restrict the num-ber of participants (originally to 80) primarily because of the limited facili-ties which at that time were available at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm where the symposium will be held. The Organizing Committee also be-lieved that the group discussions would benefit if the number of participants could be kept relatively Iow. Due to the great interest in the symposium the number of participants has however been in-creased to about 150.

Each participating national society has also been invited to submit a state-of-the-art report on the current practice on penetration testing in their country. The Organizing Committee believed that it would be very valuable to have as back-ground materiał primarily for the group discussions a description of the different penetrometers and the test proceed-ures utilized in various countries, of the methods used in the interpretation of the test results and the need of standardization of different testing methods. It was suggested that the reports should follow the same outline, viz. geological background, description of penetrometers used in each country, test procedures, interpretation and evaluation of test results, and needs of futurę developments incl. standardization. In this way it will be possible to get a complete pic-ture of the status of penetration testing of today. The response to this in-vitation exceeded the expectations of the Organizing Committee. About 25 reports have been submitted.

The state-of-the-art reports collected in Vol. 1 will be distributed before the conference. Copies of reports were mailed to the generał reporters and the group leaders as soon as the reports were re-ceived.

The state-of-the-art reports will be sum-marized at the symposium by four generał reporters representing Scandinavia, Cent— rai and Western Europę, Eastern Europę and countries outside of Europę. The di-vision into four groups has been madę primarily because the penetroraeter and the procedures used in the interpretation of the test results differ some-what between the various regions.

The participants in the symposium have been invited to submit papers conceraed with penetration testing. Submitted papers (about 70 announced) will be pub-lished after the conference in Vol. 2. Possibly a third volume will be required due to the large number of submitted papers and other contributions. Eight papers of generał interest will, however, be selected for orał presentation at the symposium. It is anticipated that rele-vant parts of all papers will be present-ed and discussed primarily during the group discussions.

The group discussions are an iroportant part of the symposium. The following top-ics will be discussed in the five dis-cussion groups:

1)    Planning of site investigations

2)    Standardization of penetrometers and futurę cooperation in Europę

3)    Futurę developments

4)    Interpretation of static penetration tests

5)    Interpretation of dynamie penetration tests.