Experimental investigation of drainage in fractionally-wet sands in mm- and cm-scale columns

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

12-1-2008

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increased focus on water repellant soils. Field- and lab-scale studies have demonstrated the impact of water repellency on constitutive relations and how increased water repellency can lead to preferential flow paths and a heterogeneous water distribution following drainage in the unsaturated zone. Recent advances in high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (XCT) techniques and algorithms designed to quantify pore-scale granular, pore structure, and fluid properties from these images have made it possible to now study some of the more fundamental processes impacting flow and transport in porous media. One of the major questions regarding the use of XCT is whether the size of the system to be imaged (often only on the order of mm's) is representative. A series of experiments were designed to test whether the results from drainage and XCT experiments in fractionally-wet sands performed in mm-scale columns are the same as those from more traditional lab-scale experiments. Results indicate that the drainage in hydrophilic and 25% fractionally-wet sands is representative and that high-resolution XCT will be able to provide valuable insight into the pore-scale processes impacting unsaturated flow. Copyright ASCE 2008.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Geotechnical Special Publication

First Page

292

Last Page

299

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