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The stability of any infrastructure, whether it is a roadway, a skyscraper or a hospital, requires proper design of its foundation system. These foundations are constructed on or within soils, and therefore understanding the behavior of soils, its stress state, and the evaluation of its shear strength is an important component of such design.

The Geotechnical Lab in LB 175 is equipped with the basic soils test equipment, such as sieve analysis, Atterburg limits, proctor and field density tests. The Advanced Geotechnical Lab (AGL) in LB 174A features the essential soils lab equipment that are used in determining the shear strength of soils. In addition, it features state-of-the-art triaxial equipment that is capable of applying dynamic loading to simulate earthquake loading, pile driving or traffic load. Also, the triaxial equipment is capable of measuring the shear strength of unsaturated soils under an in-situ stress state. 

Equipment

• GeoComp Triaxial - standard 1.4”, 2” and 2.8” sample size
• GeoComp Triaxial - dynamic/cyclic up to 6” sample size
• GeoComp Triaxial - unsaturated 2” sample size
• ELE Direct Shear - 2.5” sample size
• ELE CBR - 6” standard test
• ELE Unconfined Compression - standard test
• Humboldt Oedometer - standard 2.5” consolidation