ROWE, P. W. (1969). GCotechnique19, No. 1. l-5.

OSBORNE REYNOLDS AND DILATANCY

P. W. ROWE

It is well known that the word ‘dilatancy’ was first used by Osborne Reynolds to describe
the behaviour of sands in shear. Less widely recognized is the fact that he was the first to
demonstrate drained and undrained shear distortion of sands in a qualitative way in 18% and
1386, noting the influence of the presence of air in the pore fluid and the existence of pore
water suction in the undrained condition.
The year 1968 marked the centenary of the appointment of Osborne Reynolds to the first
Chair of Engineering at the University of Manchester. There he began a series of original
researches which led during the following thirty years to the publication of many papers of
outstanding interest and fundamental importance, covering a wide range of physical and
engineering problems. In these his mathematical ability was supplemented by an almost
uncanny insight into the physical fundamentals of a problem. He laid the foundations for
subsequent work on the theories of turbulence, convective heat transfer, lubrication and
hydraulic scale models. His classical experiments in the fields of fluid mechanics and heat
transfer are acknowledged by the widespread use of expressions which bear his name, such as
Reynolds number, Reynolds equation, Reynolds stresses and Reynolds analogy. In contrast,
his fundamental and original experiments on the dilatancy of granular media did not form the
basis of any subsequent work in soil mechanics and it is interesting to consider why this was
so and what he achieved.
Professor Osborne Reynolds, M.A., LL.D., M.T.C.E., F.R.S., was born at Belfast in 1842
of a clerical family. His father, the Rev. Osborne Reynolds had mathematical ability, being
thirteenth Wrangler at Cambridge in 1837, and was subsequently a Fellow of Queen’s College,
Principal of the Belfast Collegiate School, Headmaster of Dedham Grammar School, Essex
and finally rector of Debach-with-Boulge, Suffolk. Reynolds’ early education was carried
out mainly by his father at Dedham. Showing a preference for mechanics he obtained
practical workshop training at the age of nineteen when, in his own words, ‘his attention was
drawn to various mechanical phenomena for the explanation of which he discovered that a
knowledge of mathematics was essential’. For this reason he followed his father at Cam-
bridge, graduating seventh Wrangler in 1867 when he also was elected to a Fellowship of
Queen’s College. Shortly after entering the office of Mr John Lawson, Civil Engineer, London,
he applied for the newly instituted Chair of Engineering at Manchester in 1865 stating, ‘From
my earliest recollection I have had an irresistible liking for mechanics and the physical laws
on which mechanics as a science are based’.
According to Gibson (1946), Reynolds’ approach to a problem was unusually individual-
istic. He never began by reading what others thought about the matter, but first thought it
out for himself. The inward character of his approach and his highly individual description
of it made some of his papers difficult to follow, especially those written during his later years.
His more descriptive physical papers, however, make fascinating reading.
The results of many of his investigations were communicated in the first place to the
Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. He was Secretary of this Society from 1874
to 1883 and President for 1888-9.
A re-appraisal of Reynolds’ life and work is to be found in the proceedings of the symposium
held at Manchester in 1968 on the occasion of the Osborne Reynolds’ Centenary Celebrations.
The present Paper is concerned solely with those of his experiments which pointed the way to
soil mechanics. In this connexion it is interesting that the University provided him with a well
1 1
2 P. W. ROWE

equipped engineering laboratory only in 1887 and that much of his early experimental work
was done at his own house.
Reynolds assembled two limiting states of packing of uniform rigid spheres in regular
array, namely cubical and rhombic, and noted that the latter had a density d2 times that of
the former. He observed that any distortion would necessitate a change in volume, the un-
stable cubic array tending to contract, the rhombic to expand. He proceeded to random
particles by saying that when the grains are various sizes and shapes, such media consist of more
or less crystalline groups having their axes in different directions so that their mean condition
is amorphous. On the basis of this model he saw that distortion would induce volume change
leading to alternate states of maximum and minimum density.
He sought intuitively a relation between ‘the contraction in one direction and the conse-
quent dilatation’. Stating that when the mean condition is amorphous it becomes difficult
to ascertain what the relations between distortion and dilatation are, he considered the case of
frictionless particles and wrote down the energy equation for a triaxial stress system, equating
the tota. work absorbed to zero. Over half a century passed before these considerations were
renewed.
Reynolds was concerned mainly with dilatancy as a phenomenon, whereas friction and
strength did not attract his direct attention. He was concerned more with the influence of
friction on dilatancy, but in this he always talked of interparticle friction, separating out dila-
tancy and interparticle friction as fundamental mechanical components.
Reynolds held Rankine in the highest regard, recommending his text books to students.
There is no doubt that Reynolds had given the Rankine earth pressure equation some considera-
tion for he wrote, ‘It is a very difficult question to say exactly what part friction plays; for
although we may perhaps still assume without error
pZE_&

where 4 is the angle of repose, we canno; assume that tan 4 has any relation to the actual
friction between the molecules’. [By molecules the text elsewhere implies that he meant
particles.)
He appeared to accept the Rankine concept that 4 was measured by the angle of repose and
yet he added, ‘The extreme value of 4 is a matter of arrangement; as in the case of shot which
would pile equally well although without friction’. His frictionless shot would naturally have
required friction on a base plane, but he appreciated that the ‘extreme’ or peak value of I$
depended on original packing and was not equal to the angle of repose.
His experiments with shot or sand, in air or in water, enclosed within a rubber membrane
were designed to allow the direct measurement of volume change during shear distortion
rather than to investigate the validity of Rankine’s equation. Consequently his experiments
suffered from the lack of any attempt to measure strength. The distortion was applied by
squeezing the bag between two planes, representing a form of unconfined compression test.
The load was applied by means of a pair of pincers and no attempt was made to make a
uniformly shaped sample. Dense states were obtained by shaking the sample in the mem-
brane.
Filling an india-rubber bag with ‘six pints of dry sea sand, such as will run in an hour
glass, sharp river sand, dry corn, shot or glass marbles’, he wished to show that these materials
changed volume during load under platens and so he took dry Calais sand and connected the
tube from the bag to a mercury pressure gauge ‘so that the bag is closed by the mercury’.
He went on: ‘The actual volume occupied by the quartz grain is four and a half pints. The
remaining space, one and a half pints, is occupied by the interstices between the grains in their
closest order; these interstices are full of air so that three quarters of the bag are occupied by
quartz and one quarter by air. Since the bag is closed and no more air can get in, if the
interstices are increased from one pint and a half to two pints, the air must expand and its
Osborne Reynolds
 OSBORNE REYNOLDS AND DILATANCT 3

pressure will fall from that of the atmosphere to three-quarters of an atmosphere. As soon as
squeezing begins, the mercury rises on the side connected with the bag, showing that the bag
has increased in capacity by half a pint or one-twelfth of its initial capacity.
‘That by squeezing a porous mass like sand we should diminish the pressure of the air in
the pores is paradoxical and shows the anti-sponginess of the granular material; had there been
a sponge in the bag, the pressure of the air would have increased with the squeezing.’
He then described a saturated, drained test using an india-rubber bottle filled with shot and
water. As the bag was squeezed the water ‘decidedly shrinks in the neck’. The experiment
was repeated with ‘six pints of sand the interstices of which are full of water without any air’
and the exit tube was connected to the mercury gauge. ‘The mercury rises on the side of
the bag, showing when the pinch is hardest (about 200 lbs. on the planes) that the pressure in
the bag is less by 27 inches of mercury than the pressure of the atmosphere; a little more
squeezing and there is a vacuum in the bag.’ In this virtually undrained and saturated
compression test he noted that ‘no bubble of air’ should be in the bag if it is to become ‘abso-
lutely rigid’.
At this point he must have been on the brink of discovery of the principle of effective stress.
He knew that the fluid pressure inside the bag differed from that of the atmosphere outside.
He knew that grains carried stress for he wrote, ‘so long as the grains are held in mutual
equilibrium by stresses transmitted through the mass, every change of relative position of the
grains is attended by a consequent change in volume’. Furthermore, although he had neg-
lected strength in his experiments, he applied his observations to explain what was in fact an
observation on the bearing capacity or ‘firmness’ of sands. ‘Everyone who walks on strand
must have been painfully struck with the difference in the firmness and softness of the sand at
different times; letting alone when it is quite dry and loose. At one time it will be as firm and
hard that you may walk with high heels without leaving a footprint; while at others, although
the sand is not dry, one sinks in so as to make walking painful. Had you noticed you would
have found that the sand is firm as the tide falls, and becomes soft again after it has been left
dry for some hours. The reason for this difference is exactly the same as that of the closed
bags with water and air in the interstices of the sand. The tide leaves the sand though
apparently dry on the surface, with all its interstices perfectly full of water, which is kept up
to the surface of the sand by capillary attraction; at the same time the water is percolating
through the sand from the sands above, where the capillary action is not sufficient to hold the
water. When the foot falls on this water-saturated sand it tends to change shape, but it
cannot do this without enlarging the interstices-without drawing in water.
‘If we walk on sand under water it is always more or less soft for the interstices can enlarge,
drawing in water from above.
‘The firmness of the sand is thus seen to be due to the interstices being full of water, and
to the capillary action or surface tension of the water at the surface of the sand.
‘By substituting an impervious envelope for the surface of water, firmness of sand satur-
ated with water may be rendered very striking.’
The influence of suction on the degree of firmness or strength of sand might so easily have
been noticed. For example, he dilated closed membranes containing various amounts of
surplus water and saturated sand finding that the membrane became rigid only when the
surplus water had been absorbed. He recorded a load weighing 56 lb which could be supported,
less than the 200 lb he had applied at full suction.
In 1336, immediately following his work on dilatancy, Reynolds presented a classic paper
to the Royal Society on the theory of lubrication, based on observations by Mr Beauchamp
Tower that a journal rotated in a bath of oil was completely and continuously separated from
its bearing by a film of oil. Substituting an oily pad for the bath it had been claimed that
‘the friction depends on the quantity and uniform distribution of the oil’. Reynolds ob-
served that ‘the film of oil might be sufficiently thick for the unknown boundary actions to
4 P. W. ROWE

disappear, in which case the results would be deducible from the equations of hydrodynamics’.
He must therefore have been very well aware that friction was decreased when pressure was
raised in a fluid separating two surfaces in contact. Had he thought of his sand experiments in
terms of shearing strength and the Rankine problem, he might well have linked the pressure
increase in lubrication oils and the reduction in shearing resistance with the pressure decrease
in soil pore water and its associated increase in shearing resistance and so conceived the
significance of effective stress.
That he did not do so may be explained in part by the fact that an experiment in general
only illuminates the problem that has previously been formulated. In the latter part of the
19th century physicists were speculating on the sub-mechanics of the Universe and the
properties which an ether must have to account for the laws of gravitation, electricity, magnet-
ism and the transmission of light. Maxwell’s writings were full of definite investigations as to
what the mechanical properties of this ether might be and Reynolds was concerned in demon-
strating that dilatancy of molecules in contact might provide a mechanical system possessing
the properties assigned by Maxwell. He expanded an elastic ball within the centre of a
saturated sand mass and claimed that the dilation varied exactly as the force of gravitation
and inversely as the square of the distance from infinity to the central ball. He believed that
the maximum, minimum density conditions produced undulations which would explain
electrical phenomena. In this one aspect of all his writings he was wrong, but it explains why
he was concerned with volume change and less with friction because ‘the grains of the medium
which constitute the ether must be free from friction’. Similarly when he writes, ‘what, then,
converts the heap of loose shot into an absolutely rigid body? Clearly the limit which is
imposed on the volume by the pressure of the atmosphere’, he saw the pressure as a boundary
constraint on volume rather than as an increased stress carried by grains subject to friction.
Yet he did not neglect to enquire into the influence of interparticle friction entirely. He
repeated his dilatancy experiments not only with different materials having different friction
values, but also using a pore fluid of ‘a strong solution of soap and water which greatly
diminishes the friction’, showing again his fundamental approach to sand behaviour. How-
ever, the lack of stress and strength measurement led him to conclude that the results were
not altered.
Every major advance in soil mechanics has resulted from fundamental treatment of a
phenomenon first manifest in nature and practice, and formulated by engineers with connexions
in both research and practice. Likewise Reynolds’ fundamental contributions to turbulence,
lubrication and hydraulic models originated from the practical problems of flow of fluids in
pipes, the developments in machinery and ship propulsion. Why then did Reynolds not
consider the problems of earth pressure, even of drained sand? He realized the application
because he wrote, regarding the property of dilatancy, ‘In a practical point of view, it will
place the theory of earth-pressures on a true foundation’. One reason may be found in the
sentence which followed: ‘But inasmuch as the present theory is founded on the angle of
repose, which is certainly not altered by the recognition of dilatancy, its effect will be mainly
to show the real reason for the angle of repose’. He accepted the teaching of Rankine and,
devoid of practical connexions with actual earthworks, the paper by Sir Benjamin Baker in
1880 on ‘The actual lateral pressure of earthworks’, which included deviations from Rankine’s
theory in the case of drained granular material, passed unnoticed.
Forty-six years passed before Jenkin (1931a, 1931b) attempted to link dilatancy with
earth pressures. He repeated Reynolds’ statement that the angle of repose depends on
dilatancy, and explained that after the grains move apart and slip a certain distance, condi-
tions become steady. Consequently Jenkin considered that the angle of repose provided a
sound basis for calculations and, since this angle is close to the critical state value or angle for
loose sand, good agreement with small scale earth pressure tests was obtained using loose sand.
However, Jenkin did not test dense sand nor did he study the behaviour of sand elements.
 OSBORNE REYKOLDS AND DILATANCY 5
Notwithstanding this late revival of interest, no reference to Reynolds’ work on dilatancy
appeared in the immediate post-war soil mechanics text books. In his fundamental enquiries
Reynolds was too far ahead of his time, and it is significant that no one developed his tests in
steps which might seem logical now. This could in part have been associated with their lack
of publication in engineering journals. The immense difficulty in formulation of the need and
application of a mechanical analysis of the strength of soils underlines yet again the achieve-
ment of Terzaghi.
Reynolds chose to hold a dish of spheres for his portrait in 1904 because he believed that
his experiments on dilatancy had led him to a mechanical theory of matter and of ether which
would, among other things, explain the phenomenon of gravity. His speculations on the
‘Sub-mechanics of the Universe’, recorded in a memoir read before the Royal Society in 1902,
marked the close of his active career. In a sense he was right that of all his experiments those
on sands did point to a new science, but one which he did not visualize.

REFERENCES
BAKER, B. (1880). The actual lateral pressure of earthwork. Min. Proc. Instn civ. Engrs 65, Part III,
190-241.
GIBSON, A. H. (1946). Osborne Reynolds and his work in hydraulics and hydrodynamics. London: Long-
mans. Green and Co.
JENKIN, 6. F. (1931a). The pressure exerted by granular material: an application of the principles of
dilatancy. Proc. R. Sot. 131A, 53-89.
JENKIN, C. F. (1931b). The pressure on retaining walls. Min. Proc. Instn civ. Engrs 234, Part II, 103-
15A
_Y . .

REYNOLDS, 0. (1885). On the dilatancy of media composed of rigid particles in contact. With experi-
mental illustrations. Phil. Msg. 20,469--181.
REYNOLDS, 0. (1886a). Experiments showing dilatancy, a property of granular material, possibly con-
nected with gravitation. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 11, 354-363.
REYNOLDS, 0. (1886b). On the theory of lubrication and its application of Mr. Beauchamp Tower’s expcri-
ments. Phil. Trans. R. Sot. 177, Part I, 157-234.