A high capacity tensiometer to measure soil suction

Claudio Mancuso, Raffaele Papa

Abstract

A new high capacity tensiometer (HCT) have been developed at the University of Napoli Federico II (UNINA) using a design similar to that of Ridley and Burland (1993). With respect to a first prototype developed at UNINA, the new HCT is designed to be submergible, to enhance the measurements of soil suction, to make easier the calibration in the negative water pressure range and to improve the time-response of the probe. The new HCT can be accurately calibrated either for positive value of water pressure (i.e., to act as standard pressure transducer) or for measurement of negative water pressures (i.e., to work as a tensiometer). A number of free evaporation tests and matric suction measurements against preconditioned soil samples are presented in the paper and discussed in order to highlight the performances of the HCT.

Keywords

HCT, suction measurement, unsaturated soils, calibration, evaporation tests

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DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC4 - Measurement of Electrical Quantities

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