Van shear test

Mehod and procedure:

 The vane apparatus is assembled by mounting the vane and spring appropriate for the soil to
be tested. Instruction provided with the vane apparatus are to be followed for adjustment of
the pointer used in reading the spring and vane deflection.
 The soft clay to be tested may include tube samples -38mm (1 ½ in) or 115mm (4 ¼in)- or
soil in glass sampling jars or Proctor molds. The clamping attachment will hold the soil
container vertically below the vane shaft.
 The soil surface should be trimmed so as to permit the vane to be lowered into the soil to a
depth sufficient to ensure that shearing will take place on the horizontal edges of the vane
without movement of the soil sample surface.
 With the vane in position, apply torque to the vane at a rate that should not exceed 0.1
deg/s. This rate will normally give a time to failure of from 2 to 5 min. In very soft clays the
time to failure may be longer. Record the maximum torque with motorized apparatus.
 Record values of spring and vane deflection at intervals of 15 s or less as needed to prepare
torque or strength curves. Following determination of the vane shear strength, remold the
soil by rotating the vane rapidly through a minimum of 10 revolutions.
 Immediately repeat the vane test to determine the remolded vane shear strength. After the
test select a representative portion of the sample for a water content determination
Advantages:

 The test is simple and quick.

 It is ideally suited for the determination of the undrained shear strength of non-fissured
fully saturated clay.
The test can be conveniently used to determine the sensitivity of the soil.
 The test can be conducted in soft clays situated at a great depth, samples of which are
difficult to obtain.

Disadvantages:

 The test cannot be conducted on the clay containing sand or silt laminations or the fissured
clay.
 The test does not give accurate results when the failure envelope is not horizontal.