Triaxial Testing of an Agricultural Soil

摘要

This paper presents triaxial testing procedures and equipment as they have been applied to unsaturated soils. Modifications to conventional triaxial apparatus and procedures for testing unsaturated soils based on the principles of 'unsaturated soil mechanics' are described. The modifications accommodate the independent measurement or control of pore-air and pore-water pressures and the resolution of both air and water components of volume change. Compacted specimens have generally been used for research and the complications of soil fabric resulting from the compaction procedures have brought difficulties in the interpretation of fundamental soil behaviour. Hence, a cemented agricultural soil was tested in a modified triaxial apparatus using independent stress state variables to describe stresses in the specimen. Three state variables namely; mean effective stress (p'), deviatoric stress (q) and specific volume (n) are presented under varying water contents. Soil strength parameters; cohesion (c) and the angle of internal friction (Φ) are also determined.