Evolution of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of aggregated soils due to compressive forces

نویسندگان

  • M. Berli
  • A. Carminati
  • T. A. Ghezzehei
چکیده

[1] Prediction of water flow and transport processes in soils susceptible to structural alteration such as compaction of tilled agricultural lands or newly constructed landfills rely on accurate description of changes in soil unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. Recent studies have documented the critical impact of aggregate contact characteristics on water flow rates and pathways in unsaturated aggregated soils. We developed an analytical model for aggregate contact size evolution as a basis for quantifying effects of compression on saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of aggregated soil. Relating confined one-dimensional sample strain with aggregate deformation facilitates prediction of the increase in interaggregate contact area and concurrent decrease in macropore size with degree of sample compression. The hydrologic component of the model predicts unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of a pack of idealized aggregates (spheres) on the basis of contact size and saturation conditions under prescribed sample deformation. Calculated contact areas and hydraulic conductivity for pairs of aggregates agreed surprisingly well with measured values, determined from compaction experiments employing neutron and X-ray-radiography and image analysis. Model calculations for a unit cell of uniform spherical aggregates in cubic packing were able to mimic some of the differences in saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity observed for aggregates and bulk soil.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Selection of Intermodal Conductivity Averaging Scheme for Unsaturated Flow in Homogeneous Media

The nonlinear solvers in numerical solution of water flow in variably saturated soils are prone to convergence difficulties. Many aspects can give rise to such difficulties, like very dry initial conditions, a steep pressure gradient and great variation of hydraulic conductivity occur across the wetting front during the infiltration of water.  So, the averaging method applied to compute hydraul...

متن کامل

تخمین منحنی مشخصه رطوبتی و هدایت هیدرولیکی غیراشباع خاک در تراکم‌های

Hydraulic conductivity is an important parameter in the design of geotechnical structures such as earth dam, floor construction, retaining walls and environmental structures. In unsaturated soils, hydraulic conductivity is a function of moisture content and soil water suction i.e. soil moisture characteristic curve. In this study, the values of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity in two soil typ...

متن کامل

Effective Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity

Steady-state and transient one-dimensional unsaturated flow in vertically stratified porous media are examined. Saturated hydraulic conductivity and the alpha parameter of the exponential hydraulic conductivity function were assumed to vary from soil layer to soil layer. The use of effective unsaturated hydraulic conductivity to compute matric potential in the soil profile is demonstrated. Resu...

متن کامل

Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity function based on a soil fragmentation process

We present a new two-parameter expression for relative hydraulic conductivity (RHC) of partially saturated soils. It is based on the premise of Assouline et al. [1998] that soil structures evolve from a uniform random fragmentation process. This assumption allows us to derive hydraulic properties of soils (water retention curves and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity) from primary properties, s...

متن کامل

Vzj50061 628..640

As compared with mineral soils, there are few in situ measurements of the unsaturated hydraulic properties of peat soils available. We used parameter estimation (inverse) methods to estimate the water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions of drained peat soils from both laboratory and field data. The laboratory data were obtained on small cores using the traditional evaporation method,...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2008