Soil air permeability is a key parameter in the design of soil vapour extraction. The purpose of this study is to verify the applicability of different analytical solutions, developed to determine soil characteristics in field conditions, to estimate soil air permeability in a small-scale pilot, since field testing may be expensive. A laboratory tridirectional pilot and a unidirectional column were designed in order to achieve the objectives of this work. Use of a steady-state unconfined analytical solution was found to be an appropriate method to determine soil air permeability components for the pilot conditions. Using pressure data collected under open, steady-state conditions, the average values of radial and vertical permeability were found to be, respectively, 9.97 x 10(-7) and 8.74 x 10(-7) cm2. The use of semi-confined analytical solutions may not be suitable to estimate soil parameters since a significant difference was observed between simulated and observed vacuums. Air permeability was underestimated when transient solutions were used, in comparison with methods based on steady-state solutions. The air radial and vertical permeability was found to be, respectively, 7.06 x 10(-7) and 4.93 x 10(-7) cm2, in the open scenario, and 2.30 x 10(-7) and 1.51 x 10(-7) cm2 in the semi-confined scenario. However, a good estimate of soil porosity was achieved using the two transient methods. The average values were predicted to be 0.482, in the open scenario, and 0.451 in the semi-confined scenario, which was in good agreement with the real value.

Soil air permeability plays a decisive role in the effectiveness of soil vapour extraction (SVE) for the removal of volatile organic contaminants (VOCs) from soil. The objective of this work is to study the change of the soil air permeability during continuous venting and removal of contaminant from a polluted soil. SVE pilot experiments were conducted to investigate the interaction of soil air permeability with total liquids saturation. Oppositely to previous studies, air permeability was measured by fitting pressure data measured in a 3D laboratory venting pilot to an analytical airflow solution. The experimental correlation was compared with two different correlations published previously. A difference was observed between measured and calculated air relative air permeabilities especially for low water saturation degrees. The importance of the correct estimate of relative permeability was then illustrated by comparing vacuums and streamlines calculated using measured permeability and permeability values estimated with the two correlations tested here. Results show that an inappropriate assessment of relative permeability may engender significant errors in designing an SVE system. The second part of this work reports on the influence of air permeability change on the prediction capability of an SVE mathematical model. A significant difference between simulated breakthrough curves, estimated using firstly the relationship established experimentally and secondly the two other correlations, was observed. These results lead us to say that inadequate characterization of the air permeability change may generate significant errors in removal rate and closure time estimates.

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The study of soil pollution and treatment need a good knowledge of hydrodynamic properties. Therefore, models and drainage experiences are commonly used. In order to valid the models, boundary conditions are required. Drainage modelling in sand has been performed and compared with experimental results obtained in one-dimension column (1D) and in twodimension pilot (2D). Comparison was established by testing different boundary conditions at the device outlet and by using concordance indicators. The studied experimental results are : outlet flow, cumulated volume at the pilot outlet, hydraulic load values and saturation at different levels of the pilot. Experiments indicate that a Neumann condition at the outlet is more suitable than a Dirichlet constant pressure condition whether for 1D or 2D experiences.