Ellen Marsh

2nd Year Soils Laboratory Drained

Triaxial
An investigation into the shear strength of a sand
sample in a drained triaxial test
Abstract
Four experiments were carried out under different pressure
conditions using the same soil sample of fine granular sand. The
results gave an average friction angle of 46 degrees, and also
reasonably similar shear angles to those measured once the sample
had failed were found showing some accuracy in the experiment.
The results determined that the higher the effective stress and
deviatoric stress of the sample, the higher the maximum shear
strength and therefore a stronger soil.

Introduction
The drained trixaxial test allows the pore pressure u and the cell
pressure to remain constant throughout the experiment and
therefore by measuring displacements and the force being applied
to the sample you can determine the effective stress and the
maximum deviatoric stress at failure. Once the effective stresses
have been determined a Mohrs Circles can be drawn to calculate
the shear and friction angles at failure.
Three corrections are applied to the calculated deviatoric stress: an
area correction, a membrane correction and also a drain correction.
These allow for errors caused by the change in conditions that the
apparatus create. The formulae for these corrections are given in
the Appendices section of the report.

Ellen Marsh

Experimental Method

Figure 1 Essential features of a typical triaxial cell (BS:1377-8)

The sample of fine granular sand was prepared in accordance with

BS:1377-1 and was then separated into four for each group/pressure
condition being tested. Figure 1 shows the apparatus used for the
experiment in accordance with BS:1377-8. Each group were given
different pressure conditions to perform the experiment under.
Certain conditions had to be maintained to prevent ballooning and
the sample failing prematurely, the most important was to ensure
that the pressure on the outside of the sample was always lower
than the sample itself. It is also assumed that the volumetric strain
is zero for this experiment.

Ellen Marsh
900
800
700
600
500
Deviatoric Stress, q (kPa)

400
300
200
100
0
-1000.000.020.040.060.08 0.100.120.140.160.18
Axial Strain

Results

Figure 2: The scatter graph shows the results of the four experiments using the
same soil sample but each performed under didnt pressure conditions: these
conditions are displayed in the table below.

Figure 3: The chart displays the Mohr's circles representing the conditions at
failure for each of the pressure conditions with a calculated average friction
angle displayed. The effective stresses were taken from the results table below,
and the shear friction angles were calculated from this graph.

Group
Group
Group
Group

1
2
3
4

Cell
Pressure
(kPa)

Pore
Pressure
(kPa)

qmax Peak
Deviatoric
Stress
(kPa)

Minor
Principal
Stress
'3 (kPa)

300
300
350
250

250
200
150
100

304
567
831
713

50
100
200
150

Major
Principal
Stress
'1
(kPa)
361
674
1038
870

Effective
Principal
Stress
Ratio
('1/'3)
7.22
6.74
5.19
5.80

Calculated
Friction
Angle
(degrees)
49
48
45
43

Average shear angle was calculated as 46 degrees.

Figure 4: The above table displays the key calculations and also the measured
shear angle that was taken during the experiment to compare with the
calculated values from Figure 3.

Calculated
Shear
Angle
(degrees)
70
69
66
67

Measu
Shear
Angle
(degr

Ellen Marsh

Discussion
Figure 2 plotting the deviatoric stress until the axial strain shows
that each sample acts plastically initially under any given pressure
condition at a similar, in most cases until approximately 0.01 axial
strain where the soil then starts to behave elastically. An
observation at this initial stage is that the higher the minor principal
stress the higher the deviatoric stress at the elastic stage of the
experiment.
The rate of increase of deviatoric stress then decreases in each of
the samples until it reaches the peak deviatoric stress where the
sample fails. At this stage the decreases at a similar rate to how the
soil increased. The experiment was then stopped once the
deviatoric stress had reached 90% of the maximum. The samples
with a larger minor principal axis (which is also the difference
between the cell pressure and pore pressure) failed at a higher
strain and deviatoric stress. This tells us that the higher the minor
principal axis the higher the shear strength of the sample.
The patterns in figure 2 are as predicted and expected of a dense
sample in a drained triaxial test. However, there are a few visible
anomalies in the data (for example group 3) which could have been
caused by a number of human errors. The possible errors in this
experiment are the variation in densities of the sample and also
human error in reading the displacements and forces from the
apparatus. The four groups prepared their sample separately and
therefore each group managed to compact a different amount of
sand into each membrane, with four densities the samples differed
slightly accounting in slightly varying experiments and therefore
results. Due to the rapid rate of the experiment at its initial stage,
readings were taken every few seconds (these frequencies differed
for each group) and each the force and displacement readings were
taken by different members of the group and therefore may have
not been recorded at the same time and the rate that at which the
readings were changing made it difficult to choose a value to record.
Another small cause of error would have been in fluctuations of the
cell pressure and pore pressure, they were kept to within 1kPa of the
target for the duration of the experiment therefore the small
changes will have caused a minor error in the results.
The average shear angle was larger than expected, this may be due
to group 1s sample ballooning and therefore affecting the results.
This also meant that an approximate friction angle had to be
predicted once the sample had failed. The shear and friction angles
were calculated by trigonometry. The differences in the calculated
friction angles and the measured friction angles were relatively
small taking into account errors caused in the experiment. There is
also an additional error of measuring the friction angle by hand
using a protractor.

Ellen Marsh

Conclusion
The results showed that the higher the minor principal stress of the
sample, the higher the maximum deviatoric stress and therefore
shear strength and overall strength. The average friction angle and
shear angle were calculated to be 46 degrees as 68 degrees and the
difference between these calculated angles and the measured
angles is due to experimental and human errors during the
experiment.

Appendices
Formulas used in calculations taken from BS:1377-8 Methods for
test for Soil for Civil Engineering purposes - Part 8: Shear Strength
Tests (effective stress):
Axial Strain (8.4a)
= L/Lc
Area of cross section of the specimen normal to its axis (8.4c)
As = ((1-v)/(1-))Ac
Applied axial stress (8.4e)
(1-3)m = (P/As) x 1000
Membrane correction
(38/D0) x (tm/0.2)
Drain correction (Table 2, 8.4g)
Using the average diameter of 70mm, a drain correction value of
5kPa has been used.
Corrected deviator stress (8.4h)
(1-3) = (1-3)m mb dc
Effective major and minor principal stresses (8.4j)
1 = 1 u
3 = 3 - u