Patent ID: 9404839
Filing Date: 2016-08-02
CPC Classification: G01N,Y10T

Claim Text:
1. A method for testing sediment comprising: inserting a compression punch into a load cell while the load cell is in a parked position; attaching an environmental cell to a micromanipulator stage, the micromanipulator stage being attached to a stepper motor plate, the micromanipulator stage having micromanipulators; loading the environmental cell with water from which the sediment is obtained; positioning the sediment on a base plate; positioning the base plate in the vicinity of a compression punch by the adjusting the stepper motor plate; moving the stepper motor plate towards the compression punch; collecting images of the sediment while moving the stepper motor plate towards the compression punch; computing a strain rate based on the moving of the stepper motor plate; measuring sediment resistance of the sediment based on the strain rate and a stepper motor plate displacement of the stepper motor plate; recording the sediment resistance and the stepper motor plate displacement on a computer-readable medium; and computing any of compression strength, Young's modulus, and elastic modulus of a sediment aggregate based on the sediment resistance and the images.