Undrained Shear Test of a Triaxial Sample - Geotechnical Modelling

Hi! Welcome to Geotechnical Modelling, a series of videos eponymous of the Masters-level module taught by Professor Glenn McDowell, Dr Alec Marshall and Dr Charles Heron at the University of Nottingham, Department of Civil Engineering.

In this video we finally get around to shearing our sample. Before we start shearing, there's a few parameters we need to calculate from our consolidation data, to make sure the soil is deformed at an appropriate rate.
First we'll calculate the height after consolidation from volume changes during the consolidation phase, then we'll find the theoretical time for 100% consolidation (t100), which we can use to give the shear rate.

After watching a hyperlapse of the sample shearing over a period of around two hours, you'll see me remove the cell from the load frame and dismantle our sample before throwing it into the oven so we can calculate the final voids ratio in the next and final video.

Thanks for watching!

Angus Pettey is a PhD student within the Nottingham Centre for Geomechanics, supervised by Dr Charles Heron.
You can find out more about Angus at https://pettey.co.uk and on LinkedIn   / angus-pet.  .

The equipment in this video is property of the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Centre for Geomechanics.