Soil Triaxial Cells

GCTS offers a variety of soil triaxial cells to meet any need. Standard cells have a pressure rating of 1, 2, or 3.5 MPa and have a maximum specimen size of 70, 100, 150, or 300 mm. Double-walled cells are also available for unsaturated and partially-saturated soil testing.

All cells are constructed of stainless steel with a see-through acrylic external cell wall. After a specimen is loaded for testing, the external cell wall is lowered over the cell and fastened into place, resulting in minimum disturbances to the specimen. All the standard triaxial cells can accommodate smaller diameter specimens using optional platens. These triaxial cells accept specimens with a length of approximately 2.5 times the diameter. A stainless steel, extra-precision ball bearing guides the loading shaft. Both swivel loading buttons and rigid threaded connectors are provided with these cells. The swivel buttons allow the top cap to rotate during loading. The threaded adaptor is used for a rigid connection, which forces the axial deformation to be uniform. Stress reversal is easily applied with this adaptor. Up to eight feed-through ports to connect internal instrumentation can be added as an option.

GCTS also offers a cell designed for unsaturated soil testing with two walls to prevent differential pressure changes for the inner wall while changing the confining pressure. This eliminates volume change errors due to cell expansion as typically associated with single cell units. This also limits the amount of disturbance caused in the specimen, as the outer cell wall is lowered around the specimen after it is prepared. GCTS also offers a volume change device to be used with the double-walled cell to measure the volume change during unsaturated triaxial tests.