ISSN: 1945-7545
CODEN: GTJODJ
Published Online: 23 March 2010
Page Count: 8

Development of a Portable Probe for Field and Laboratory Measurement of Low to Medium Values of Soil Suction

Poirier, Steven E.
Engineer, Geosyntec Consultants, Inc., Acton, MA

DeGroot, Don J.
Professor, Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA

(Received 22 May 2009; accepted 5 February 2010)

Abstract

The sample quality suction probe is an economical, robust, and portable probe capable of obtaining rapid and reliable, direct, non-destructive measurements of soil suction in the field or laboratory. Based on the designs of Ridley and Burland in 1993 and Toker in 2004 for unsaturated soils, this probe is constructed mainly from commercially available components and the saturation and measurement procedures are easy to perform. The probe is able to obtain repeatable measurements from saturated soil samples in the field immediately after sampling and also in the laboratory prior to specimen preparation for consolidation or strength testing. These suction measurements may be used to evaluate sample quality in the field or in the laboratory prior to specimen testing.

Keywords:
suction, sample disturbance, sample quality, residual effective stress, suction probe

Paper ID: GTJ102557
DOI: 10.1520/GTJ102557
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