Hydraulic consolidation cell

• Hydraulic loading
• Low friction design
• No weights required
• Compact design, occupies less space than conventional oedometers
• Incremental or constant rate of loading tests
• Suitable for compacted clay
• Two testing mode available: manual or with automatic data acquisition

The Hydrocon hydraulic consolidation cell is the basic part of the apparatus used for the determination of the magnitude and rates of consolidation of soil specimens of relatively low permeability using hydraulically loaded apparatus. This procedure overcomes the complexity usually associated with hydraulic oedometers and allows more information to be gathered from the soil sample. Pore water pressure is measured using a pressure transducer and vertical settlement using a linear strain transducer (or, as economical alternative, a dial gauge). As the Hydrocon is a confined consolidation system, it is possible to measure both pore and back pressure during testing. In addition it is also possible to make accurate permeability measurement generating a vertical flux of water through the sample. The complete test apparatus includes the Hydrocon cell, Water pressure system, Water de-airing system and measuring system (manual or electronic with Geodatalog data acquisition system as alternative. See widening , configuration of a complete system.
The Hydrocon is also available for testing unsaturated samples. See Hydraulic consolidation cell for unsatureted samples.