TypoSoil® is a technological innovation for soil and porous media characterization

TypoSoil® is a device intended to simultaneously measure both the shrinkage and water retention curves of sample.

TypoSoil® can analyze in laboratory a series of 8 disturbed or undisturbed cylindrical soil samples during desiccation cycle.
The device is fully automated. At each step of rotation, the device measures the mass of one of the 8 samples placed on its platen with a precision balance; the volume by laser sensors (without any contact) and the water retention via a porous ceramic cup inserted at the middle of the cylinder before the beginning of the test. The whole process occurs in an thermoreguled oven.

The curves of both parameters are simultaneously logged for every sample.

• Soil shrinkage curve measures the soil volume with respect to the gravimetric or volumetric water content.
• Water retention curve also known as the soil water characteristic curve measures succion (pressure) in soil sample with respect to gravimetric or volumetric water content

TypoSoil® is able to generate the shrinkage and retention curves by measurement of :

• Succion (with tensiometer), diameter, height and weight of the soil core during a drying cycle starting from saturation.
• For each sample a set of measurements is taken approximately every 10 minutes. Succion is determined with a ceramic-needle tensiometer in the approximate functional range of 0.01-80KPa.
• The height and diameter of the soil core is measured by a set of lasers. The diameter is measured by a thru-beam displacement laser, and the height is measured by a spot displacement laser.
• The sensitivities for diameter and height are 5μm and 10μm respectively.
• The gravimetric water content is measured by the weight change of the sample at each turn and using the dry weight obtained at the end of the experiment.