Soil‐Fabric Measurement using Phase Transition Porosimetry
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Volume 119, Issue 6
Abstract
A new method for the study of soil fabric has been developed. This method has been referred to as conductometric phase transition porosimetry (CPTP). With CPTP, changes in electrical conductance and temperature of saturated soil samples are measured during a cycle of capillary freezing and melting. These measurements are used to calculate the sample's pore size distribution. The paper includes an introduction to CPTP, an investigation of the variability of test results, a comparison of results with mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), and a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of CPTP. Experimental results show that the new methodology can provide a useful and valuable tool for quantitative studies of soil fabric and is capable of measuring pore sizes between 2.5 nm and 5,000 nm diameter. Pore sizes measured by CPTP are smaller than MIP‐measured pore sizes. Due to the lesser disturbance of pore structure and much larger sample size, CPTP provides a more accurate and representative measure of the pore structure of recompacted fine‐grained soils than MIP.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
Volume 119 • Issue 6 • June 1993
Pages: 1019 - 1036
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 10, 1991
Published online: Jun 1, 1993
Published in print: Jun 1993
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