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http://dx.doi.org/10.12989/gae.2018.14.2.131

A curtain traveling pluviator to reconstitute large scale sand specimens  

Kazemi, Majid (Department of Civil Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad)
Bolouri, Jafar B. (Department of Civil Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad)
Publication Information
Geomechanics and Engineering / v.14, no.2, 2018 , pp. 131-139 More about this Journal
Abstract
The preparation of repeatable and uniformly reconstituted soil specimens up to the specified conditions is an essential requirement for the laboratory tests. In this study for large samples replication, the simultaneous usage of the traveling pluviation and curtain raining technique is used to develop a new method, called the curtain travelling pluviator (CTP). This simple and cost effective system is based on the air pluviation approach, whilst reducing the sample production time, can reproduce uniform samples with relative densities ranging from 25% to 96%. In order to investigate the resulting suitability and uniformity from the proposed method, a series of tests is performed. The effect of curtain traveling velocity, curtain width, drop height, and flow rate on the parameters of the sample is thoroughly investigated. Increase in the curtain velocity and drop height leads to the increase in relative density for the sand specimen. Increase in curtain width typically resulted in the reduction of relative density. Test results reveal that the terminal drop height for the sand specimen in this study is more than 500 mm. Relative density contour lines are presented that can be utilized in optimizing the drop height and curtain width parameters. Sample uniformity in the vertical and horizontal orientation is investigated through the sampling containers. Increasing relative density tends to result in the higher sample repeatability and uniformity.
Keywords
traveling pluviation; curtain raining; sand specimen preparation; relative density; uniformity;
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Times Cited By KSCI : 4  (Citation Analysis)
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