The paper presents results of numerical calculations of a diaphragm wall model executed in Poznań clay formation. Two selected FEM codes were applied, Plaxis and Abaqus. Geological description of Poznań clay formation in Poland as well as geotechnical conditions on construction site in Warsaw city area were presented. The constitutive models of clay implemented both in Plaxis and Abaqus were discussed. The parameters of the Poznań clay constitutive models were assumed based on authors’ experimental tests. The results of numerical analysis were compared taking into account the measured values of horizontal displacements.

The article presents an assessment of the suitability of the cone penetrometer to determine the soil state. The work describes the principle of the device operation, which is similar to commonly used dynamic DPL probes. Then, the results of research conducted in Polish conditions using the new conical penetrometer were presented. A series of measurements were performed in real field conditions. On their basis, an attempt was made to correlate the results obtained with a conical penetrometer and a static probe CPT. Then, the obtained correlations were validated. On this basis preliminary evaluation of the conical penetrometer suitability for the soil state determining.