Utilisation of transparent synthetic soil surrogates in geotechnical physical models: A review

Efforts to obtain non-intrusive measurement of deformations and spatial flow within soil mass prior to the advent of transparent soils have perceptible limitations. The transparent soil is a two-phase medium composed of both the synthetic aggregate and fluid components of identical refractive indices aiming at attaining transparency of the resulting soil. The transparency facilitates real life visualisation of soil continuum in physical models. When applied in conjunction with advanced photogrammetry and image processing techniques, transparent soils enable the quantification of the spatial deformation, displacement and multi-phase flow in physical model tests. Transparent synthetic soils have been successfully employed in geotechnical model tests as soil surrogates based on the testing results of their geotechnical properties which replicate those of natural soils. This paper presents a review on transparent synthetic soils and their numerous applications in geotechnical physical models. The properties of the aggregate materials are outlined and the features of the various transparent clays and sands available in the literature are described. The merits of transparent soil are highlighted and the need to amplify its application in geotechnical physical model researches is emphasised. This paper will serve as a concise compendium on the subject of transparent soils for future researchers in this field.