An active control system for matric suction measurement

Matric suction is an important stress state parameter in unsaturated soil mechanics. Many studies have been carried out in the past to determine the matric suction through direct and indirect methods. Direct measurement of matric suction has been proven possible with high-suction tensiometer; however high-suction tensiometers are still susceptible to cavitation. The axis translation technique developed by Hilf (1956) has been employed in many laboratory tests for unsaturated soils to avoid problem of cavitation in the water pressure measurement system. However in laboratory testing of unsaturated soils, air and water pressures are usually independently controlled and there is no need for a feedback control. The matric suction of soil can be measured using a modified pressure plate apparatus by actively changing the air pressure to maintain the water pressure to be close to zero thus imposing negligible water content change in the soil. A major setback of the existing practice is the need to manually adjust the air pressure of the modified pressure plate in response to the changes in the water pressure. This paper presents an active control system for the modified pressure plate apparatus for matric suction measurement. The experimental results obtained from modified pressure plate apparatus with active control system show good performance as compared to the high suction tensiometer.