Soil-Water Characteristic Curves for Unsaturated Soils - Unsaturated Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice - page 237

Burette

Heater block

Stopcock

Air trap

Stopcock

Specimen
retaining ring

Vapor saturator

Soil
specimen

Level mark

Support Ballast tube Level mark

Roller

Connecting tube

2-Bar high-air entry disk

Figure 5.73 Setup of volumetric pressure plate extractor along with its hysteresis attachment
(from SoilMoisture Equipment Corporation, 1985).

Figure 5.74 A 5-bar ceramic plate extractor (i.e., maximum
applied matric suction is 500 kPa). (Courtesy of SoilMoisture
Equipment Corporation, Santa Barbara, CA.)

Figure 5.76 Pressure membrance extractor (from SoilMoisture
Equipment Corporation, Santa Barbara, CA).

1

2

50

Drying

14

13

3

12

40

15

4

11 16

Wetting

5, 17

10

6, 18

30

9

19
7

8

20

1 10 100

Matric suction ( u a - u w ), kPa

Figure 5.75 A 15-bar ceramic plate extractor (i.e., maximum
applied matric suction is 1500 kPa). (Courtesy of SoilMoisture
Equipment Corporation, Santa Barbara, CA.)

Figure 5.77 SWCCs for drying and wetting processes for Aiken
clayey silt (after Richards and Fireman, 1943).