Abstract: Two commercially available consolidometers are introduced in terms of their working principles, operative procedures, compressive pressure control, level of automations as well as advantage and disadvantage of each type of equipment .Throughout commercial laboratory consolidation tests, each type of equipment could not replace the other type. In some projects, the combinations of both types of the consolidometers are satisfactory. It is concluded that, under the state of the practice, the combination of both type of equipment is necessary from the comprehensive considerations of the cost, efficiency as well as the data reliability. The improvement recommendations on the commercial consolidometers are provided.

Key words: Fully Automatic Pneumatic Consolidometer, Levertype Consolidometer；Consolidation Test of Beijing Soils；Self-weight Collapse Test of Loess；Self-weight Pressure of Saturated Loess