1

Orsi et al. 1992; Desrues et

al. 1991
Allersma 1982

Konagai et al. 1992

Measurements Group 1989

Brandsby et al, 1975;

Lorenz, H. & Heinz, W.
1969; Robinsky, E. et al.,
1964; Roscoe, K.J. &
James, R. (1963)
Corapcioglu, Y.M. et al.,
1997; Gaganis, P. et al.,
2005; Huang, W.E. et al.,
2002; Lunati, I. et al., 2003;
Theodoropoulou, M.A. et
al., 2003
Drescher, A. (1976)

7
8

10
11

12

13
14
15

A technique used primarily in medicine, has been

adapted to obtain nonintrusive images of soil samples.
Translucent media made of crushed glass and a matched
refractive index fluid has been used to study stress
distribution under simple shear.
Translucent media made of crushed glass and a matched
refractive index fluid has been used to study the response
of saturated embankments under seismic loading.
Transparent photoelastic gelatins have been used to
study the surface deformation patterns of structural
members.
Researches began experimenting with the use of medical
CAT scan and MRI to probe the interior of natural soils.
These techniques remain limited in their application
because they are either costly or present technical
difficulties, particularly when probing large models.
Glass beads have been extensively used in research of
two dimensional flow problems.

Glass beads have been extensively used in research to

verify plastic flow rules for granular materials.
Konagai, K. et al. (1994),
Glass beads submerged in fluids with matching
Konagai K. et al. (1992)
refractive index have been employed to study
deformations of embankments.
Allersma, H. (1982);
Glass beads submerged in fluids with matching
Allersma, H. (1991);
refractive index and in combination with photoelasticity
Wakabayashi, T. (1950)
techniques to determine stress distribution within
granular models.
Rashidi, M. et al. (1997)
Cryolite, a transparent fluoride salt, has been used for the
study of bacterial growth in porous media.
Iskander, M. (2010)
Iskander identified three different families of transparent
soil surrogates that have been used to create transparent
soil models.
Iskander, M.G. et al. (2002); Amorphous silica is suitable for modelling strength,
Liu, J.Y. et al. (2003)
permeability, and consolidation behaviour of natural
clays.
Welker, A. (1999, 2000)
Amorphous silica powder has been used to study flow
near wick drains.
Liu, J.Y. et al. (2005)
Amorphous silica powder has been used in 2D tank tests.
Gill, D. & Lehane, B.
Amorphous silica powder has been used to study pile
(2001); Hird, C. et al.
penetration in clays.
(2011); Lehane, B. & Gil,

16
17
18

D. (2004); Ni, Q. et al.

(2010)
Toiya, M. et al. (2007)
Hird, C.C. & Stainer, S.A.
(2010)
McKelvey. D. et al. (2004)

19

Song, Z. et al. (2009);

Wang, D. et al. (2011)

20

Iskander, M. et al. (2003);

Zhao, H. & Ge, L. (2007)
Sadek, S. et al. (2002)

21

22

25

Liu, J. & Iskander, M.G.

(2004)
Iskander, M.G. & Liu. J.
(2010)
Ahmed, M. & Iskander, M.
(2011a, 2011b)
Fernandez, S.R. et al. (2011)

26

Lo, H.C. et al. (2010)

27

Ezzein, F.M. & Bathurst,

R.J. (2011a)

28

Ezzein, F.M. & Bathurst,

R.J. (2011b)
Peters, S.B. et al. (2009)

23
24

29

Amorphous silica powder has been used to study

deformations near penetrometers.
Amorphous silica powder has been used to study helical
anchors.
Amorphous silica powder has been used to study ground
improvement using sand columns.
Amorphous silica powder has been used in centrifuge
tests to model the behaviour of suction-emdedded plate
anchors
Silica gel can be used to model the static and dynamic
behaviour of sand.
Silica gel can be combined with amorphous silica
powder within the same transparent model using the
same pore fluid to represent a layered system of sand and
clay.
Silica gel has been used to model pile penetration.
Silica gel has been used to model shallow foundation.
Silica gel has been used to investigate soil deformation
due to tunnelling.
Particles of Aquabeads can be easily crushed, allowing
the formation of custom grain size distributions.
Aquabeads have been used to study multiphase flow and
surfactant flushing in soils, but they can only simulate
weak marine sediments in deformational studies.
Ezzein and Bathurst were the first to demonstrate that
fused quartz can be used as a transparent soil surrogate
by matching it with a pore fluid made of a blend of
mineral oils similar to baby oil.
Fused quartz has been used to investigate soilgeosynthetic interaction during pullout.
Fused quartz has been used for the study of unsaturated
flow.

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