Measuring wave velocity, damping and stress-strain behaviors of geo-materials using GAP-SENSOR

A triaxial testing system is described for measuring the wave velocity, stifiness, damping and stress-strain behavior of layered granular materials and rock specimens under impact, cyclic and monotonic loading. the system is equipped with high-frequency gapsensors (gss) in front of target plates connected on the side of a specimen surface to measure wave velocity, axial and radial deformations locally, ldts to measure axial and radial deformations locally, and a load cell. based on the rst arrival of compressional wave of the deformation time-histories under impact loading, the pulse velocity is evaluated. in addition, using a reduced deformation amplitude technique at different elevations of the specimen, damping ratio is calculated. results indicate that measurement of the wave velocity and damping ratio using low noise level gss is a simple, nondestructive and reproducible method. comparing the results of small strain shear modulus and damping ratio using local axial and radial strains measured by ldts and gss in the cyclic loading, with those of the proposed method, the high precision of the used innovative method is confirmed. using this system, a continuous stress-strain relation for a strain range of 0.0001% to several % can be obtained from a single test using a single specimen.