When you do design of soil structures like embankments and foundations, it is critical for you to determine the soils mechanical properties to ensure it can hold those structures properly during and after construction. Excavations, building constructions, tunnelling and other similar applications will affect subsoil structures one way or another, and such effects are simulated positively with a triaxial test.
You can use Triaxial testing machine to ensure that the test gets don in the best way. Now, this triaxial testing of soil is a crucial aspect of construction where the relationship between stress and strain on an undisturbed soil sample is evaluated by subjecting it to different drainage conditions and stress levels.
There could be various ways to examine and test soil, like the standard penetration test, that is versatile and simple yet lacking in accuracy if you compare it to advanced methods like the triaxial shear test. Triaxial testing is one of the common ways to gage the soil’s mechanical properties. Specially designed equipment is used to carry out certain types of triaxial testing on soil.
Advancing Ways of Testing
You know, one of the most advanced triaxial test systems offers even automated triaxial compression tests on cylindrical remoulded and undisturbed soil samples. The apparatus or tools can automatically run, control, and even report CD (consolidated drained), CU (consolidated undrained), and even UU (unconsolidated undrained) compression tests. The device is formed up of a pressure control panel, universal testing machine, and also a triaxial cell.
By carrying out triaxial testing of soil, you can make informed and proper decisions when resolving problems pertaining to stability. The results can help you decide the stiffness and shear strength of soil when holding reservoirs of water, supervise the soil’s internal response, and measure the stress and strain working. Triaxial testing is effective in pore water pressure measurement and in deciding sandy soil’s contractive behaviour, too. Hence, this testing technique is deemed helpful to engineers when they require to improve the designs of their buildings while restricting build and structural failures.
The Procedure of Triaxial Shear Test
In this procedure the specimen can be set ready either remoulded or undisturbed. You can test the undisturbed soil on soils that have enough cohesion. In order to form the remoulded soils, cohesive soil is gathered and compacted properly. Care is properly taken while preparing the cohesion less soils.
Quick Perks of Triaxial Test
- The stress distribution on the failure plane is unchanging.
- The specimen is free to fail on the dimmest plane
- There is full control over the drainage.
- You can measure the pore pressure changes and the volumetric changes. In a direct manner
- The state of stress at all middle stages up to failure is known. The Mohr circle may get drawn at any stage of shear.
Importance of Quality of Equipment
Since you are going to evaluate the soil through a machine, you need to be sure that the tools or equipment you are using are of good quality only. You cannot make any random moves by any sort of random devices. Now, a good quality triaxial machine would ensure that all the tasks are performed in a professional and perfect manner.
Conclusion
Hence, once you perform the tests sin a proper procedure and with the right equipment, the results you get are good and effective.