The idea of creating a Data Base for the validation of Dynamic and Static Constitutive Relations for soils has been haunting the engineering and scientific communities for years.  A succession of conferences and workshops held in the U.S. and Europe have emphasized the importance of having a trustworthy set of data to be used by civil engineers and researchers all over the world.

Over the years, research conducted at Case Western Reserve University on the mechanical behavior of soils under Dynamic and Static loading has resulted in a wealth of data.  In the eighties, a joint research program on constitutive equations supported by the National Science Foundation was started in cooperation with the University of Grenoble, France. The research resulted in substantial advances in the art of modeling, the techniques of testing and the intricacies of data acquisition and processing. It all led to the present data base which researchers can use to validate their constitutive relations. It contains over 234 tests conducted on three different sands with a wide variety of stress paths.  More than half of the tests are on hollow cylinders, the rest on cubical samples.  In addition, the data base contains the results of 18 tests on Edga Plastic Kaolin clay and the results of 8 tests on Hydrite121 clay; both series conducted on thin hollow cylinders.

The hollow cylinder tests are all conducted with the same pressure inside and outside the cylinder.  Axial and torsional stresses are applied such that the result is a radial path with different values of b =(σ2-σ3)/(σ1-σ3) where σ1, σ2 and σ3 are the principal stresses.  The same radial stress paths (i.e. the same b) were duplicated in the cube tests; in addition to others, such as circular path tests, that can only be conducted in the cube device.

The references and the four papers cited in Appendix 1 of the manual give complete information on the tests conducted as well as details on the sizes of the specimen and the testing equipment.  Such information can also be found in the data base for each test. The references will help answer most of the questions about the hollow cylinder and cube testing.

Advances in computer technology and software have necessitated the rewriting of the program and of the user’s manual.