Measurements of Drying and Wetting Gas Diffusion Coefficients and Gas Permeability of Unsaturated Soils Using a New Flexible-Wall Device
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 150, Issue 11
Abstract
Wetting–drying cycles have a significant impact on the gas diffusion coefficient () and gas permeability () of unsaturated soils. The soil volume change during wetting–drying cycles limits the application of the traditional rigid-wall device for measuring and , due to the gas preferential flow along the interface between soil and the rigid-wall container. Although flexible-wall devices for measuring are available, no such device exists for measuring . Thus, the effects of wetting–drying cycles on remain unclear, particularly for fine-grained soil. The present study developed a flexible-wall device to investigate the effects of a wetting–drying cycle on the and of unsaturated soils. Both the flexible- and rigid-wall devices were adopted to measure and of three soil types, including fine sand, silt and kaolin. The rigid-wall device could overestimate by up to approximately one order of magnitude, whereas it overestimated by approximately 2–3 times. Regardless of and , the difference in measurements between the rigid- and flexible-wall devices became more significant at a lower water content and along the drying path because of the gas preferential flow caused by soil shrinkage in the rigid-wall device. Accordingly, the kaolin exhibited the largest difference in and as measured by the flexible- and rigid-wall devices because it had the largest clay minerals and the finest particle size, resulting in the largest volume shrinkage. The and measured by the flexible-wall device along the drying path were generally larger than those along the wetting path, probably because of entrapped gas in the soil caused by water spray during wetting.
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Data Availability Statement
Data, models, and codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledged research funding provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 52178320, 42177120, and 52069005) and the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province (2024JC-YBQN-0508).
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Received: Nov 14, 2023
Accepted: May 23, 2024
Published online: Aug 16, 2024
Published in print: Nov 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Jan 16, 2025
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