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The water retention curve (WRC), representing an important key for the modelling of hydro-mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils, is still not fully understood, because it originates from microscopic hydraulic and capillary phenomena. Furthermore, its experimental measurement, especially for cyclic drainage and imbibition paths, is challenging and timeconsuming. In this contribution, a recently developed low-cost easy-to-use miniature testing device for the investigation of the WRC of unsaturated granular soils, such as coarse-grained sand and a packing of glass beads, is presented. With the help of the new device, that can be controlled by a Raspberry Pi single-board computer, the hysteretic WRC can be investigated in a conventional macroscopic approach by plotting the macroscopic specimen degree of saturation versus measured matric suction. The test setup allows an automatic measurement of the WRC which is measured continuously following a programmed test procedure. In addition to the technical realisation of the new device, this contribution focuses on macroscopic results of water retention tests. Moreover, the testing device has been designed in a miniaturised size, in order to obtain microscopic insights into the phase distribution during cyclic drainage and imbibition paths with the help of computed tomography in future applications.

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In this contribution the hydro-mechanically coupled behaviour of a sand is experimentally investigated with the focus on settlements induced by changes in degree of saturation and suction. This phenomenon, referred to as collapse behaviour, is attributed to rearrangements of the grain skeleton due to changing capillary effects on wetting of the soil. For the experimental investigation of the collapse behaviour of a medium coarse sand cyclic dryingwetting tests are performed under oedometric conditions. In the test setup a sand specimen, subjected to a constant small vertical stress, is cyclically dried and wetted by volume control of the pore water, whereas matric suction is measured using a tensiometer implemented to the specimen loading plate (topcap tensiometer). The test procedure, originally designed to investigate the hysteretic nature of the soil-water characteristic curve of the sand, allows to measure the one dimensional volume change of the specimen as evoked by the applied hydraulic paths under constant net stress. By varying the specimen void ratio the impact of density on the collapse behaviour can be assessed. The test data is important for the development of a mechanical constitutive model which can take the volume change behaviour due to suction changes into account.