The Geo-environmental Laboratory (GEL) is a major new investment made by the Centre that provides facilities for the study of unsaturated soils. It boasts a full suite of water retention curve measurement devices for the study of unsaturated soils. With that suite of devices, GEL is capable of measuring suctions across the full spectrum of water content from saturation to near dryness.
Our equipment includes:
- two Barcelona Cells for water retention curve measurements
- decagon chilled-mirror psychrometer WP4C
- decagon aqualab vapor sorption analyser (VSA)
- two fully-instrumented columns for the study of multi-layered media under thermomechanical loads
- micromeritics porosimeter for characterising the porous network of soils and other porous media
- micro-climate monitoring system and climate-chamber phytotrones
- rheometer, hydraulic and thermal conductivity measurement devices.
