Triaxial Apparatus for Applying Liquid Infiltration with Controlled Boundary Conditions and Internal Suction Measurement
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133, Issue 6
Abstract
This note describes a triaxial apparatus that applies liquid infiltration under automatically controlled boundary conditions while using the new Xeritron sensor to measure suction. Three different infiltration boundary conditions of interest including constant mean stress (CMS), constant volume (CV), and constant stiffness (CS) are applied to examine the influence of boundary conditions on the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of unsaturated clay materials. CMS and CV tests provide limits of infiltration boundary conditions while CS tests represent a flexible spring-type boundary condition. Spatial distribution of gravimetric water content and bulk density are measured to calculate dry density and degree of saturation following testing to determine internal changes to the specimens. The results from initial testing show that the apparatus is providing experimental evidence to evaluate unsaturated flow models and elastic-plastic constitutive models to examine the behavior of swelling clay soils under varying confinement conditions.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The writers acknowledge valuable input and technical support from Jim Graham, Bruce Kjartanson, David Dixon, David Anderson, Kerry Lynch, Narong Piamsalee, Richard Brodeur, and Ralph Fenner.
References
Blatz, J. A., Anderson, D. E. S., and Siemens, G. A. (2007). “Evaluation of the transitional inelastic behaviour of unsaturated clay-sand mixtures. ” Canadian Geotechnical J., in press.
Blatz, J. A., and Graham, J. (2000). “A system for controlled suction in triaxial tests. ” Geotechnique, 50(4), 465–469.
Blatz, J. A., and Graham, J. (2003). “Elastic-plastic modelling of unsaturated soil using results from a new triaxial test with controlled suction. ” Geotechnique, 53(1), 113–122.
Blatz, J., Tang, G. X., Graham, J., and Wan, A. (1999). “Psychrometer techniques for measuring suction in the triaxial test.” Proc., 52nd Canadian Geotechnical Conf., CGS, Regina, Sask., Canada, 617–622.
Briaud, J.-L., Zhang, X., and Moon, S. (2003). “Shrink test-water content method for shrink and swell predictions.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 129(7), 590–600.
Cunningham, M. R., Ridley, A. M., Dineen, K., and Burland, J. B. (2003). “The mechanical behaviour of a reconstituted unsaturated silty clay.” Geotechnique, 53(2), 183–194.
Delage, P., Howat, M. D., and Cui, Y. J. (1998). “The relationship between suction and swelling properties in a heavily compacted unsaturated clay. ” Eng. Geol. (Amsterdam), 50(1–2), 31–48.
Dixon, D., Chandler, N., Graham, J., and Gray, M. N. (2002). “Two large-scale sealing tests conducted at Atomic Energy of Canada’s underground research laboratory: The buffer-container experiment and the isothermal test.” Can. Geotech. J., 39(3), 503–518.
Hygrometrix, Inc. (2005). Xeritron datasheet V2.0, ⟨http://www.hygrometrix.net/documentation/xeritronds2005.pdf⟩.
Lingnau, B. E., Graham, J., Yarechewski, D., Tanaka, N., and Gray, M. N. (1996). “Effects of temperature on strength and compressibility of sand-bentonite buffer.” Eng. Geol. (Amsterdam), 41(1–4), 103–115.
Nishimura, T., and Vanapalli, S. K. (2004). “Shear strength of an unsaturated silty soil in low and high suction range under constant volume conditions.” Proc., 57th Canadian Geotechnical Conf., CGS, Québec City, Québec, 17–24.
Rockwell Software Inc. (1999). Getting results guide, RSView32, ⟨http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/gr/vwspc-gr001_-en-p.pdf⟩.
Romero, E., Lloret, A., and Gens, A. (1995). “Development of a new suction and temperature controlled oedometer cell.” Proc., 1st Int. Conf. on Unsaturated soils, Paris, France, Vol. 2, 553–559.
Siemens, G. A. (2006). “Influence of boundary conditions on the hydraulic-mechanical behaviour of an unsaturated swelling soil.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man., Canada R3T 5V6 ⟨https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/handle/1993/262⟩.
Siemens, G. A., and Blatz, J. A. (2005). “Soil suction measurement using the Xeritron sensor in two different types of infiltration tests on a swelling soil.” Proc., Int. Symp. Advanced Experimental Unsaturated Soil Mechanics, ISSMGE, Trento, Italy, 23–26.
Thomas, H. R., Cleall, P. J., Chandler, N., Dixon, D., and Mitchell, H. P. (2003). “Water infiltration into a large-scale in-situ experiment in an underground research laboratory.” Geotechnique, 53(2), 207–224.
Wan, A. W. L. (1996). “The use of thermocouple psychrometers to measure in-situ suctions and water contents in compacted clays.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil and Geological Engineering, Univ. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man., Canada.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133 • Issue 6 • June 2007
Pages: 748 - 752
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 24, 2005
Accepted: Dec 4, 2006
Published online: Jun 1, 2007
Published in print: Jun 2007
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.