Medium-size triaxial apparatus for unsaturated granular subbase course materials

This paper proposes a testing method for evaluating the effect of water content on the deformation–strength characteristics of unsaturated subbase course materials. A medium-size triaxial apparatus for unsaturated soils is newly developed in order to examine the mechanical behavior of unsaturated subbase course materials subjected to fluctuations in water content and to shorten the testing time. It adopts the pressure membrane method with hydrophilic microporous membrane filters, instead of the pressure plate method with ceramic disks, and controls both pore air pressure and pore water pressure at the cap and the pedestal separately. The results of the proposed testing method, carried out by this apparatus, are shown to conform well to the results of previous researches. This indicates that the medium-size triaxial apparatus for unsaturated soils is highly useful for triaxial compression tests and water retentivity tests on unsaturated granular base course materials and for shortening the total testing time.