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Determination of Water Retention and Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity

of Brahmaputra Sand

Article · January 2015

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Malaya Chetia
Assam Engineering College
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 RESEARCH PAPERS

DETERMINATION OF WATER RETENTION AND UNSATURATED

HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY OF BRAHMAPUTRA SAND
By

MALAYA C. * SREEDEEP S. **
* Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Assam Engineering College, Guwahati, Assam, India.
** Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, India.

ABSTRACT
Unsaturated soils with hydraulic properties such as water retention and hydraulic conductivity are considered to be the
most crucial parameters for modeling flow process in unsaturated soils. Experimental determination of unsaturated
hydraulic conductivity (ku) is a challenging task and it requires a costly and skilled experimentation. Therefore, the normal
practice is to estimate ku from water retention characteristics. Water Retention Characteristic (designated as WRC)
includes the development of a graphical relationship between suction and water content (gravimetric or volumetric).
This indicates that the accuracy of ku is very much dependent on the unambiguous determination of WRC. In this study, a
tensiometer and volumetric water content probe have been used to measure soil suction and volumetric water content,
respectively of a local sand by using two different measurement procedures. The ku of the soil has been estimated based
on the WRC obtained. The main purpose of this investigation is to understand the extent of influence of different WRC
measurement procedures on ku estimation. The study indicates that the measurement procedures have moderate
influence on uniqueness of WRC of Brahmaputra sand and hence the estimated ku.
Keywords: Sandy Soil, Soil Suction, Volumetric Water Content, Water Retention Characteristic, Unsaturated Soil Hydraulic
Conductivity, Measurement, Estimation.

INTRODUCTION been developed by a number of researchers (Mualem,

The Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity Curve (UHCC) of a
soil is defined as the relationship between the hydraulic
conductivity (ku) and the soil suction (ψ) or volumetric
water content (θ) (Gribb, Kodesova, & Ordway, 2004). To
model the flow of water in an unsaturated soil, it is
necessary to define the relationship between the ku and ψ
(Fredlund, Xing, & Huang, 1994). The UHCC is considered
to be the most vital parameter required when performing
seepage analysis for unsaturated soil. The UHCC curve is
required in analyzing the triggering of landslides due to
rainfall infiltration and the modeling of flow and volume
change in collapsing soils, compacted soils, and
expansive clays. It is also required when modeling
contaminant migration in vadose zone and in the design
of capillary barriers and cover systems. Existing field and
laboratory methods of determining the ku are either time
consuming, tedious or other logical difficulties (Stephens,
1996). Therefore, empirical permeability equations have
1986; Rawls et al., 1991) to determine soil hydraulic
conductivity by assuming that the soil follows a particular
relationship between the ku and the ψ (Gardner, 1958;
Brooks & Corey, 1964) and (or) water content (Averjanov,
1950; Campbell, 1973). However, the disadvantage of
this approach is that, it requires several measured
permeability data to determine the parameters of the
permeability equation (Fredlund et. al, 1994). Moreover,
each empirical permeability equation is soil specific and
based on a limited amount of data. Therefore, such
permeability equation cannot be applied directly to other
soils without characterizing it (Zaradny, 1993).
In such a situation, estimation procedures are generally
used to predict ku using the Water Retention Characteristic
(WRC) of soil (Fredlund et al., 1994). The WRC is a graphical
relationship between water content (gravimetric, w, or
volumetric water content, θ) and measured suction
(matric suction, ψm, or total suction, ψ). Estimation

14 i-manager’s Journal on Civil Engineering, Vol. 5 l

No. 4 l
September - November 2015

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