Approach to Rapidly Determining the Water Retention Curves for Fine-Grained Soils in Capillary Regime Based on the NMR Technique
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 143, Issue 7
Abstract
A new procedure is developed for rapidly determining the water retention curves of unsaturated fine-grained soils based on the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique. From a well-defined pore-size distribution function, a distribution function of NMR transverse relaxation time () is derived for fully-saturated soils, by virtue of the Young-Laplace equation and the linear relationship between pore radius and . By fitting the measured distribution curve with the proposed distribution function, the key parameters characterizing the soil-water retention characteristics can be determined. To validate the proposed method, a series of the NMR measurements was performed for two types of fully-saturated fine-grained soils. The proposed procedure is then used to obtain the soil-water retention curves of the tested soils from the NMR measurements; the obtained soil-water retention curves are compared with those determined independently by the pressure-plate method. It is shown that the proposed procedure can be effectively used to determine the soil-water retention curves of fine-grained soils in a capillary regime. Compared to conventional methods, which are generally time-consuming, the proposed procedure can save a significant amount of time in determining the soil-water retention curves.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China through Grant Nos. 11302243, 41402276, and 51239010.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 143 • Issue 7 • July 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 30, 2015
Accepted: Nov 8, 2016
Published ahead of print: Feb 21, 2017
Published online: Feb 22, 2017
Published in print: Jul 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 22, 2017
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