Our equipment can reproduce conditions from the brittle crust to the upper mantle. We specialize in innovative design of equipment and experiments. Most of our equipment was designed and built in Liverpool.
Contacts
For questions or information on using these facilities, please contact:
- Dan Faulkner: faulkner@liverpool.ac.uk
- Elisabetta Mariani: mariani@liverpool.ac.uk
- David McNamara: D.Mcnamara@liverpool.ac.uk.
Instruments and capabilities
Triaxial deformation apparatus TR1
- Servo-controlled confining pressure <200 MPa
- Servo-controlled pore pressure <200 MPa
- Strain rates from 10-8 s-1 to 10-5 s-1
- Temperature <200 degC.
Triaxial deformation apparatus TR2
- Servo-controlled confining pressure <250 MPa
- Servo-controlled pore pressure <200 MPa
- Strain rates from 10-8 s-1 to 10-5 s-1
- Temperature <200 degC
- Acoustic measurements (8 electrical feed-throughs with axial P and S wave measurements).
Triaxial deformation apparatus TR3
- Servo-controlled confining pressure <250 MPa
- Servo-controlled pore pressure <200 MPa
- Strain rates from 10-8 s-1 to 10-5 s-1
- Argon gas confining medium
- Temperature <800 degC.
Rotary shear apparatus
- Fully confined ring shear sample assembly
- Servo-hydraulic axial load actuator <700 kN
- Fast-acting servo-hydraulic confining pressure <200 MPa
- Upstream and downstream servo-controlled pore pressure <200 MPa
- Displacement rates from 0.01 microns/s to 2m/s
- Acoustic/electrical measurements (15 electrical feed-throughs).
High-temperature hydrostatic apparatus
- Servo-controlled confining pressure <200 MPa
- Servo-controlled pore pressure <200 MPa-1
- Temperature <800 degC.
Hydrostatic apparatus
- Servo-controlled confining pressure <200 MPa
- Servo-controlled upstream and downstream pore pressure control <200 MPa
- Acoustic measurements (8 electrical feed-throughs with axial P and S wave measurements).
Uniaxial hydraulic press
- Brazilian jig for tensile strength measurements
- Acoustic measurements (axial P and S wave measurements)
- Axial and radial strain gauge measurements.
Solid medium ‘Griggs’ apparatus
- Confining pressure <2 GPa
- Strain rates from 10-8 s-1 to 10-4 s-1
- Temperature <1200 degC.
High-temperature creep apparatus
- Dead-loading creep apparatus design
- High-resolution displacement measurement via a double LVDT displacement cage
- Temperature <1500 degC
- Controlled atmosphere furnace; Argon gas, CO2.
High-temperature horizontal tube furnace
- Temperature <1700 degC
- Controlled atmosphere furnace; Argon gas, CO2.
BET surface area analysis
Helium pycnometer
Rock preparation facilities
- Coring
- Flat-bed grinder
- Rotary grinder
- Large annular saw for cutting delicate samples
- Small, high precision, annular saw
- Slow cutting saw with a 2D goniometer.