The Torpedo is composed by an upper adaptor, 3 ms of rods, a lower adaptor, a DMT blade. The upper adaptor has a slot permitting the lateral exit of the cable. The torpedo executes 3 m of sounding starting from the bottom of a borehole. If the soil is easily penetrable the torpedo can be 4 ms or more, otherwise say 2 ms or less. The torpedo is generally advanced by pushing the top of the drill rods (typically OD 76 mm, unlikely to buckle). If the soil is hard the penetration will be less than 3 ms, but it is desirable to have at least 0.6 m or better 1 m of penetration, in order to reach soil not softened by the hole.
The torpedo is pre-assembled before starting the test, and is connected at the bottom of to the drill rods each time it has to be lowered downhole. The cable does not run all the way inside the rods up to the surface, a time consuming operations, but exits laterally at the top of the torpedo. Above this point the cable is taped to the outside of the rods at 1-1.5 m intervals up to the surface. Since the unprotected cable is vulnerable, the adaptor on top of the torpedo has a collar (see figures). The collar has a vertical channel for the cable and has a diameter larger than the upper rods so as to insure a free space between the upper rods and the casing. The operator should not allow the slotted adaptor and the exposed cable to penetrate the bottom of the hole, to avoid damaging the cable.
The torpedo method takes longer than using a penetrometer, but has the advantage of permitting to overcome (destroying) obstacles. The torpedo method permits the execution of very deep DMT soundings (max depth: 135 m in L’Aquila 2009).