Abstract: Cone resistance plays a very important role in static cone penetrationtests. The studies on thecone resistance in static cone penetration tests are discussedbriefly. Some theoretical methods - bearingcapacity theory, cavity expansion theory, strain path method, movingpoint dislocation method - arereviewed, together with the developments of numerical analysis andexperimental research. At the sametime, the applicabilities of various methods are compared. Bearingcapacity theory is simple, but it cannot be used tosimulate accurately the deep penetration of cone because it ignores the compressibility of soil and theincrease of the initial stress around the shaft. Cavity expansion theory is a simple and more accurate methodof analyzing cone penetration resistance and it considers the influence of compressibility or expansibility ofsoil and the increase of the stress around the shaft in the process of cone penetration on the penetrationresistance. Because cavity expansion theory uses the expansion of cavity to simulate equivalently thepenetration of cone, the results obtained from different simulatingmethods are different. Strain path methodcan solve effectively the undrained penetration problem in saturatedclay, but it is not applicable to sand.Moving point dislocation method considers drainage in part and can predict consolidation coefficient well,but its other applications remain to be tested because it is an analytic approach of linear elasticity. Finite-element method lacks a suitable technique in dealing with the slow penetration of cone and this results insignificant errors and serious difficulties in calculating failure loads. Calibration chamber tests will continueto play an important role in validating and establishing correlations between cone resistance and soilproperties, but the results obtained need to be corrected before they are used in field. Finally, some researchtrends in the field are discussed.