Most residual soils especially in slopes are in unsaturated condition and therefore matric suction is an important factor to be considered in the design or analysis of slopes. The suction has an important bearing on water entry, structural stability, stiffness, shear strength and volume change. The soil matric suction, the water content and the solute content and how they vary with time are often the most important variables in soil engineering design. The field instrumentation for automatic continuous measurement of soil matric suction, rainfall and other slope instability related parameters are presented in this paper. Description of the selection, fabrication and installation of the instrumentation are discussed.
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