Geotechnical Properties of a Transparent Sand

Abstract

A new type of transparent sand made of a fused quartz sand (i.e. glass sand) and the mixture of two white mineral oils was introduced as a material for geotechnical visualization model tests in this paper. The transparent sand possessed significant advantages in transparency. In indoor natural light environment, the clear visible depth of the transparent sand was 14cm, and the maximum visible depth can be 20cm. Laboratory tests including direct shear, one dimensional compression, compaction, consolidation-drained triaxial and permeability tests were conducted to investigate the geotechnical properties of the material. The results showed that the material was similar in many properties to natural sands. The transparent sand had great potential to be used in laboratory tests on geotechnical structures in observing soil deformation.