Evaluation of Different Laboratory Procedures for Determining Suction–Water Content Relationship of Cohesionless Geomaterials
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 28, Issue 2
Abstract
The determination of suction–water content relationship (SWR) is of prime importance in unsaturated soil mechanics. When such a relationship is obtained from continuous drying or wetting process of the same soil sample, it is termed as water retention characteristic curve (WRCC). The relationship obtained from suction measurement of remolded soil samples with different water content is termed as spot SWR (SSWR). Most of the reported studies use drying WRCC (DWRCC) because of the relative ease of its measurement as compared to wetting WRCC (WWRCC). There are not many studies that critically compare measured DWRCC, WWRCC, and SSWR of soils. Such a comparison would help to understand the differences in WRCC attributable to hysteresis and limitations of spot measurements, if any. A simple procedure similar to the field wetting process is discussed in this paper for developing DWRCC and WWRCC on the same soil sample, one after the other. WRCCs and SSWRs of three cohesionless soils are not unique for the range of suction measured in this study. The implication of such nonuniqueness is further investigated by comparing unsaturated soil hydraulic conductivity function estimated based on WRCCs and SSWRs.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 28 • Issue 2 • February 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 11, 2015
Accepted: Jun 22, 2015
Published online: Aug 11, 2015
Discussion open until: Jan 11, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
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