Proceedings of Indian Geotechnical Conference

December 22-24,2013, Roorkee

PORTABLE TRAVELING PLUVIATOR TO RECONSTITUTE SPECIMENS OF

COHESIONLESS SOILS
V. K.* Gade, Research Scholar, IIT Bombay, vinilg@iitb.ac.in
T. N. Dave, Assistant Professor, PDPU Gandhinagar, trudeep@gmail.com
V. B. Chauhan, Research Scholar, IIT Bombay, 114040012@iitb.ac.in
S. M. Dasaka, Assistant Professor, IIT Bombay, dasaka@civil.iitb.ac.in
ABSTRACT: Preparation of uniform and repeatable sand beds of required density is a prerequisite for obtaining
reliable results from laboratory tests on reconstituted sand specimen. A portable traveling pluviator (PTP), working
on the principle of air pluviation, is used in the present study to achieve the above objectives. PTP is a simple
device which is widely adopted for preparation of large size specimens of cohesionless soils. The PTP essentially
consisted of a hopper, orifice plate for varying deposition intensity, combination of flexible and rigid tubes for
smooth travel of material, and a set of diffuser sieves to obtain uniformity of pluviated sand bed. Effect of height of
fall, deposition intensity and number of diffuser sieves on the uniformity, and density of sand specimen are studied.
From the preliminary studies it is noticed that sand beds with a wide range of relative densities, in the range of
41.2%-100%, can be achieved using PTP. It is also observed that denser sand beds can be achieved by controlling
deposition intensity, whereas, lower density samples could be obtained by controlling height of fall.

INTRODUCTION
In the past sand specimens were prepared for
laboratory model testing by using Tamping,
vibration and pluviation techniques [2, 13]. Among
these methods pluviation method is widely adopted
by various researchers because of its unique
advantage, wide range of density of sand bed can
be achieved compared to other techniques and
there is no possibility of particle breakage during
preparation of sand specimen. It is easy to prepare
the sand samples in stages, which facilitate
placement of instrumentation, such as load cells,
pressure cells or accelerometers, etc., at various
locations within the specimen during the sample
preparation process.
The method employed to prepare the reconstituted
sand specimen has to fulfill the following criteria,
as suggested by Kuerbis and Vaid [8]: 1) the
method must be able to produce loose to dense
sand beds in the unit weight range expected within
an in-situ soil deposit; 2) the sand bed must have a
uniform void ratio throughout; 3) the samples
should be well mixed without particle segregation,
regardless of particle gradation or fines content; 4)
sample preparation method should simulate the
mode of soil deposition commonly found in the
soil deposit being modeled.

LITERATURE REVIEW
For the last 4 decades air pluviation techniques
have been used to prepare large and small sand
specimens to conduct model foundation testing
[21], calibration chamber testing [6, 9], centrifuge
model tests [15, 19, 21], model tests using shaking
table [8], and triaxial tests [12, 17]. A wide range
of densities were achieved by controlling the sand
flow from hopper by using roller and deflector
[21], shutter and diffuser [18], nozzle and diffuser
[22] orifice, rigid tube and diffuser [7].
EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
Present study uses portable travelling pluviator
(PTP) device, as shown in Figs.1, 2 and 3
developed by Dave and Dasaka [7] for sand bed
preparation. PTP device was designed on the basis
of simultaneous control of number of sieves, height
of fall (distance between the lowermost diffuser
sieve to the top of the sand bed) and deposition
intensity (mass of soil falling in the chamber per
unit effective area of diffuser per unit time) to
achieve a wider range of RD. This device has an
advantage of preparing large size sand specimens
for laboratory model testing.

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Gade, Dave, Chauhan and Dasaka

kPa. From the analysis of direct shear test results,

angle of internal friction () of the sand is obtained
as 34.680.

Fig.2 Details of diffuser sieve set schematic

diagram (Dave and Dasaka, 2012)

Fig.1 Details of Portable travelling pluviator

assembly (Dave and Dasaka, 2012)
MATERIAL PROPERTIES
Indian standard sand, commercially known as
Ennore sand, is used in the present study, hereafter
referred to as Grade II sand. Typical particle size
distribution curve of Grade II sand is shown in Fig.
4. From the results of the particle size analysis, it
can be observed that Grade II sand is uniformly
graded medium to fine sands and classified as SP
according to the Unified Soil Classification System
(USCS). Some of the important physical properties
of sand are presented in Table 1. Direct shear tests
are performed on Grade II samples placed at 68%
relative density, as per IS: 2720-Part 13 [10]. All
samples are sheared at a constant rate of
displacement of 1.25 mm/min under four normal
stresses, viz. 50 kPa, 100 kPa, 150 kPa and 200

All dimensions are in mm

Fig.3 Diffuser sieve set assembly (Dave and
Dasaka 2012)
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Portable traveling pluviator to reconstitute specimens of cohesionless soils

Table 1 Properties of sand used in the study

Property
Value
Gs
2.62
D50 (mm)
0.57
Cu
1.36
Cc
0.95
emin
0.538
emax
0.848
3
d min (kN/m )
14.18 (ASTM D4254-00)
d max (kN/m3)
17.04 (Pluviator)
Gs Specific gravity of soil solids, D50 Mean
diameter of soil particles, Cu Coefficient of
uniformity, Cc Coefficient of curvature, emin
Minimum void ratio, emax - Maximum void ratio,
dmin Minimum dry unit weight, dmax
Maximum dry unit weight

accordance with the standard procedure of

inverting cylinder (ASTM D4254-00)[2] and other
procedures, viz., can method and funnel method,
suggested by Mehdiratta and Triandafilidis [16],
and the results are reported in Table 2. Among all
the three methods, more consistent results are
achieved by inverting cylinder method.
Table 3 Relation between orifice size and
deposition intensity
Size of orifice (mm)
Deposition intensity
(g/cm2/sec)
5
0.468
6
0.584
8
1.857
10
3.69
12
4.832
15
11.529

Table 2 Minimum unit weight of sand (kN/m3) by

ASTM D4254 and methods suggested by
Mehdiratta and Triandafilidis (1978)
Funnel
method
14.50

Cylinder
method
14.28

Can method
14.34

14.60

14.18

14.48

14.39

14.18

14.45

Fig.5 Effect of deposition intensity and height of

fall on relative density

Fig.4 Grain size distribution curve of Grade II sand

Maximum unit weight is determined by air
pluviation, avoiding particle crushing, following
the procedure suggested by Lo Presti et al. [13].
The minimum unit weight is obtained in

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Tests are performed in order to evaluate effect of
HF (varied from 2.5 cm to 30 cm), DI (using
orifice diameter of 5 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm, 10 mm and
12 mm), and number of diffuser sieves (varied
from 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10) on RD of pluviated
specimen. Sieves are rotated 450 horizontally with
respect to each other [18]. A cylindrical mould of
volume 3213 cm3 is used for preliminary studies on
evaluation of DI and density of sand bed. The
effect of orifice size on the DI for Grade II sand is
presented in Table 3. Observed DI increases with
increase in diameter of orifice. Lower density of
sand specimens can be achieved at higher DI,
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Gade, Dave, Chauhan and Dasaka

however at higher DI sand specimens may not be

uniform. A linear relationship is observed between
RD and HF for low DI values. Effect of HF on
density of sand bed for constant DI and without
diffuser sieves is observed very high, such as
73.4% to 100% as shown in Fig. 5, which is line
with observation made by Choi et al. [6].

Fig.7 Effect of number of sieves and height of fall

on relative density for orifice dia 10 mm on Grade
II sand

Fig.6 Effect of number of sieves and height of fall

on relative density for orifice dia 8 mm
Similarly, effect of DI, number of diffuser sieves,
and HF on unit weight of sand are reported in Figs.
4 to 6. Increase in the unit weight of sand specimen
is observed with increase of HF, for a constant DI.
As the number of diffuser sieves increases lower
density sand specimens can be achieved, and these
finds are in agreement with the observations made
by Rad and Tumay [18] and Choi et al. [6].
Difference of RD achieved without sieves and with
2 sieves is more pronounced compared to
difference of RD achieved with 2 and 4 sieves or 4
and 6 sieves etc., as shown in Fig 6 to Fig 8.
Change in RD of sand specimens with the number
of diffuser sieves is significant up to 8 sieves and
further increase in the diffuser sieves has little or
no significance on RD of sand specimen. In
conclusion, RD increases with increase in HF,
decrease in number of sieves and decrease in DI.
From Figs. 4 to 6 it is observed that, irrespective of
height of fall, the decrease in RD is more
pronounced with increase in number of sieves for
lower DI than for higher DI.

Fig.8 Effect of number of sieves and height of fall

on relative density for orifice dia 12 mm on Grade
II sand
CONCLUSIONS
Portable travelling pluviator, used in the present
study, consists of multiple diffuser sieve
arrangement for obtaining uniform sand rain and
set of orifice plates for DI control. In this paper
pluviation studies are carried out using Indian
Standard Sand Grade II, and the following major
conclusions are drawn from the study:
Relative density of sand specimens increases
with increase of height of fall and decrease
with increase of DI.
Without diffuser sieves higher relative densities
can be achieved, at the cost compromising on
uniformity of sand bed.

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Portable traveling pluviator to reconstitute specimens of cohesionless soils

RD decreases with increase in number of sieves

for any particular height of fall and DI. As DI
increases effect of number of sieves on RD
decreases at higher height of fall.
With diffuser sieves arrangement, a range of
RD from 41.2% to 100% can be achieved.

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