Abstract
The presence of different pore fluids present in unsaturated soils (water and air) complicates the measurement of sample volume change. Since volume change of the air phase is difficult due to the compressibility of the fluid, it becomes necessary to measure sample volume change by measuring the change in volume of water in the surrounding triaxial cell. This paper introduces and assesses a new double cell triaxial cell developed by Wykeham Farrance. The design of the new triaxial system is similar to the Wheeler modified triaxial cell (Wheeler, 1988) but uses a glass inner cell wall, to avoid problems of absorption of water by Perspex. Furthermore, the cell has been designed to use a high capacity suction probe that can be fitted through the base pedestal. Issues of de-airing the cell and the accuracy of volumetric measurements that can be achieved are discussed in the paper.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bishop, A.W., Donald, I.B.: The experimental study of partly saturated soils in the triaxial apparatus. In: Proc. 5th Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Found. Engng, Paris, vol. 1, pp. 13–21 (1961)
Lourenço, S.D.N., Gallipoli, D., Toll, D.G., Evans, F.D.: Development of a commercial tensiometer for triaxial testing of unsaturated soils. In: 4th Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, Carefree-USA, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 14, vol. 2, pp. 1875–1886. ASCE, Reston (2006)
Maswoswe, J.: Stress path for a compacted soil during collapse due to wetting. PhD thesis, Imperial College, London (1985)
Mendes, J.: Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on an Instrumented Embankment: An unsaturated soil mechanics approach. PhD thesis, Durham University (2011)
Wheeler, S.: The Undrained Shear Strength of Soils Containing Large Gas Bubbles. Geotechnique 38(3), 397–413 (1988)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Mendes, J., Toll, D.G., Evans, F. (2012). A Double Cell Triaxial System for Unsaturated Soils Testing. In: Mancuso, C., Jommi, C., D’Onza, F. (eds) Unsaturated Soils: Research and Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31116-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31116-1_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31115-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31116-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)