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The Influence of temperature on earth pressure cell readings

From National Research Council Canada

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DOIResolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/T04-004
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Affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada. NRC Institute for Research in Construction
FormatText, Article
Subjectearth pressure cells; soil pressure; temperature calibration
Abstract
Vibrating-wire earth pressure cells are often used to measure soil pressure in fills and embankments or contact pressure between soil and buried structures. Instrumentation companies provide each cell with a formula to calculate pressure based on frequency and temperature readings. This paper presents the calibration work that was carried out on a series of 76-mm and four 228-mm diameter cells with temperature ranging from -10 °C to 30 °C with and without the effect of applied pressure. Based on this work and additional data from two field sites, it was found that temperature calibration factors, given on the calibration sheet specific to each cell, largely underestimated the temperature effect. It was also found that the correction factors were dependent not only on temperature, but also on the pressure applied to the cell. The temperature calibration factor, which is given as a linear correction on the calibration datasheet, becomes parabolic as a pressure is applied on the cell. Based on the findings, recommendations are provided for minimising the temperature effect on pressure cell readings and improving the accuracy of the temperature calibration factor.
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  • Canadian Geotechnical Journal, no. June (1 June 2004): 551–559.
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedYes
NRC numberNRCC 46286
NRC-IRC-15498
NPARC number20378944
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Record identifier4585c7d0-68b0-48dd-908e-2aec751e6f91
Record created2012-07-24
Record modified2020-04-17
Date modified: