ABSTRACT
A new torsional simple shear device, able to perform both monotonic and cyclic loading on solid cylindrical soil specimens, has been developed at the “Laboratorio de Geotecnia” of CEDEX (Spain). This apparatus was designed with a view to obtaining, with great simplicity and for a wide range of shear strain, accurately and reliably tenso-deformational characteristics of soils. To this end the device is able to perform tests on solid cylindrical specimens (both reconstituted and undisturbed) of standard dimensions 38 mm diameter and 76 mm high. The shear strain measurement system, consisting of two pairs of LVDT’s, allows to obtain a continuous record of shear strains from 10−4% to 3%. Torque is applied by an electromagnetic loading system which can grow up to 1.2 Nm and is measured and registered by means of a torsional load cell with a resolution of 5.10−5 Nm. In this paper the apparatus is described and some experimental results are presented.
