ACG Unsaturated Soil Mining Seminar

3^rd December 2014
 
EPlabs in association with the ACG (Australian Centre for Geomechanics) held a 3 day event on Unsaturated Soil Mechanics in Mining Seminar at the UWA Club House. Phil from EPLab presented on the Laboratory Testing Techniques in Unsaturated Soil Mechanics to various companies that attended on the day.

 

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• Cerchar Abrasivity Testing available

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•  Application of Ring Shear test to slope failure in clay material. Capturing the true residual shear strength parameters of the failure

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• Completion of Anisotropic Strength Testing to identify the Hoek Brown failure criteria of Fresh Shale in the Pilbara

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• Successful implementation of Servo-Control in open defect Direct Shear Testing to capture the true peak and residual values for defects other than sawcut or planar surfaces

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• Post-peak failure of rock sample in High Stiffness Hoek Triaxial Testing capturing the shearing characteristics of rock and residual strengths – Complete Stress Strain curve with Poisson’s Ratio

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• Stress Path testing based on K’a Consolidation in Triaxial Testing for Soils/clays

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• Intact Shearing of shale material with controlled moisture content using HAE technology

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• Entire suite of unsaturated soil mechanics testing including: SWCC to capture suction characteristics of different soils/clays/sands

Successful completion of 16 independent Acoustic Emission and DRA Insitu Stress Testing Reports for various clients in 2013-2014.

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To better accommodate the requirements and improve accuracy and efficiency for soil and rock testing.

we have acquired an extra six (6) specially designed Soil Triaxial Machines (max confining pressure of 3MPa) that can conduct anisotropic consolidation testing, stress path testing and the normal CU, CD and UU tests.

We have also acquired one (1) new tailored designed Servo-Controlled Direct Shear unit that better facilitates direct shear requirements for both open defects (structures) or intact shearing.
 
The other two (2) newly designed machines acquired are for the state of the art unsaturated soil mechanics. Machines can perform unsaturated direct shear testing also pressure plate testing to obtain the SWCC curve required for air-entry value analysis and suction matric analysis.