• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.3C
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• pp.201-207
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• 2006

Soil tests are generally conducted using a membrane to measure a pore water pressure. However, it has also been recognized that the membrane penetrates into the specimen by the change of the confining pressure, and it results in the erroneous measurement in the pore water pressure and the volumetric strain. This study examined the effectiveness of the correction equation of the membrane penetration on the basis of the experimental data acquired during the isotropic unloading and the cyclic shear process using the hollow cylindrical shear test equipment. The results showed that the membrane penetration by the correction equation could be overestimated when the mean effective stress was lower than 20kPa in this study. The limitations originated from the sudden increase near the zero effective stress, and in order to prevent the overestimation in low effective stress condition, the use of the constant a was proposed in this study. Furthermore, the correction equation for the membrane penetration had to be applied carefully when the initial relative density was high and the density changes were occurred by the relocation of the soil particle by the liquefaction.