A Novel Procedure to Measure Membrane Penetration of Coarse Granular Materials

Abstract

The membrane penetration effect will significantly influence the measurement of specimen volume deformation in the triaxial test. This paper presents a novel procedure for measuring and correcting the membrane penetration of rubber by using a newly developed multiscale triaxial apparatus. A series of triaxial tests on coarse granular materials was conducted with different specimen diameters, and it is found that the proportion of volume change due to membrane penetration decreases linearly with increasing specimen diameter. To reduce the margin of error induced by membrane penetration in the triaxial test, it is recommended to use specimens of larger size. Such a method can facilitate the correction and estimation of the membrane penetration effect of coarse granular materials.

Keywords

• coarse granular materials
• membrane penetration
• triaxial tests
• volume change
• specimen size