Abstract：Due to membrane penetration, the conventional water exchange method for volume measurement suffers from low accuracy when applied to triaxial testing of coarse-grained saturated and unsaturated soils. This study proposes a general-purpose method for measuring the volume of coarse-grained soil during triaxial testing by tracking the movements of the lateral surface through specially designed rigid targets affixed to the membrane surface. The 3D coordinates of these targets are obtained using a multi-media photogrammetric technique. Triaxial tests were conducted on a stainless-steel cylinder and coarse-grained soils to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Testing on the stainless-steel cylinder demonstrates that the proposed method can directly measure soil volume with an error of 0.28%. The triaxial tests on coarse-grained soils indicate that the measurement results are reasonable when compared to predictions based on existing analytical models. The rigid targets are unaffected by membrane penetration, and their use eliminates the need for complex corrections associated with membrane penetration, enabling direct volume measurement of coarse-grained soils during isotropic and shear loading. This proposed method offers an alternative to existing techniques and has potential applications not only in triaxial testing of saturated but also unsaturated coarse-grained soils across various size ranges.
李 林，朱圆圆，王加辉. 基于刚性标记点的粗颗粒土三轴试样体积测量方法研究[J]. 岩石力学与工程学报, 2025, 44(S2): 305-314.
LI Lin, ZHU Yuanyuan, WANG Jiahui. Direct coarse-grained soil volume measurement during triaxial testing based on rigid targets. , 2025, 44(S2): 305-314.
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2025, Vol. 44 
