Experimental Measurement of the Permeability of Calcareous Sands in the South China Sea

This study reports a laboratory investigation to the permeability of a typical marine sand, i.e., calcareous sand, which is widespread in South China Sea. Through the traditional permeability test, the relationships between flow velocity and hydraulic gradient have been measured for the calcareous sands. To investigate the effect of particle size distribution on the permeability, calcareous sand specimens with varied uniformity coefficients and curvature coefficients have been tested in the tests. A significant permeability dependency on the particle size distribution can be recognized from the test results. In light of the unique properties of the calcareous sands, an investigation to the effect of the particle shape on the permeability was performed by comparing with glass spheres. The result indicates that due to the irregular particle shape, the calcareous sands behave an apparent deviation in the permeability from the glass sphere specimen composed of regular particles.