Temperature Effects on Volume Measurements

Abstract

Volume measuring systems for triaxial tests are susceptible to changes in ambient temperature, and the volume change due to temperature can represent 10% or more of the measured value, depending on the magnitude of the total volume change. The automatic volume change logging system showed a clear dependence on temperature, a dependence related to the thermal expansion of the water in the system, the apparatus itself and any entrapped air. By using regression analysis on data accumulated over several tests, a simple temperature correction formula for volume change is derived.