| Abstract: | The conventional use of the shear vane test is primarily restricted to the in-situ measurement of the undrained shear strength characteristics of saturated cohesive soils. Scant attention has been devoted to the use of this test as a means of measuring further properties of geotechnical interest. This paper presents an analytical study which illustrates the possible use of a shear vane test as a technique for the measurement of in-situ deformability characteristics of a soil medium. Certain plausible assumptions have been invoked for the analytical treatment of the shear vane problem. The vane blades are represented as elliptical shapes, the soil disturbance associated with the vane penetration is neglected and the soil mass enclosedwithin the swept boundary of the vane is represented as a rigid region. These, together with assumptions of classical isotropic elastic soil behaviour, enable the development of certain exact solutions for the torque–twist relationships of vanes fully or, partially embedded in the soil. The results indicate that the elastic deformability characteristics of a soil medium can be directly recovered from an examination of the initial stages of an experimental torque–twist curve. In particular, the measured parameter would correspond to the linear elastic shear modulus of the soil medium. |
