Comparison of Pore-Size Distribution of Soils Obtained by Different Methods
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17, Issue 1
Abstract
An average size of pores and pore-size distribution (POSD) is often required for advanced constitutive models for soils adopted for hydro-mechanical-thermal coupled problems. There are a number of methods available for determining POSD, with most requiring specific testing equipment and expertise. In this paper, a comparison is made of POSDs obtained from two different techniques, viz, mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and the pressure plate test (PPT). The former requires a specialists’ apparatus not commonly available in soil laboratories and also has safety issues, whereas the latter is more common because it is used to determine soil water retention characteristics of soils. On the basis of certain assumptions, it is demonstrated that POSDs obtained from the two techniques match well and PPT can be used by researchers in soil mechanics to obtain POSD. The range of pore sizes determined by the two techniques is, however, different. Also, the POSD obtained from other soil water retention curve (SWRC) techniques are compared with MIP data. A better correlation between POSDs and SWRCs can be observed.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the financial support of the State Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41430634) for the experimental work in this paper.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17 • Issue 1 • January 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 15, 2015
Accepted: Mar 17, 2016
Published online: Apr 22, 2016
Discussion open until: Sep 22, 2016
Published in print: Jan 1, 2017
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