The Water Retention Characteristics of Compacted Clays

This paper summarizes a database of sixteen measured soil-water retention curves (SWRC) of compacted soils and their conventional properties from the published literature. In addition, six SWRC were determined for a compacted clay from Ottawa region using different initial compaction water contents and compaction efforts. Using the above summarized information, relationships were developed between the parameters of the SWRC and the conventional soil properties. This study shows that liquid limit coupled with clay fraction can be a useful tool to correlate with the rate of desorption for compacted soils. In addition, a new technique is also proposed for the estimation of the entire SWRC of compacted fine-grained soils using one point measurement of matric suction versus water content and the derived relationship between the liquid limit and the clay fraction. The proposed method provides good comparison between the measured and estimated SWRCs for the compacted fine-grained soils with a relatively rigid pore structure.