Moisture Curve of Compacted Clay: Mercury Intrusion Method

Microstructure Investigation in Unsaturated Soils: A Review with Special Attention to Contribution of Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy

“…However, predictions of the water retention curve from the PSD have not always been so straightforward. Prapaharan et al (1985) significantly underestimated the measured water contents for suctions greater than 10 kPa. Romero et al (1999) similarly compared predictions of the water retention curve with measurements on a moderately plastic clay, and found that the MIP predictions substantially underestimated water contents at suctions greater than 40 kPa.…”

“…The PSD is an essential fabric element that has been used in geotechnical engineering applications and correlated with macroscopic properties, such as its dependency on the type of compaction for clays (Ahmed et al 1974;Kong et al 2005); the differences between laboratory and field-compacted soils for equivalent dry density and moulding water content (Prapaharan et al 1991;Jommi and Sciotti 2003); the saturated water permeability (GarciaBengochea et al 1979;Juang and Holtz 1986a, b;Lapierre et al 1990); frost-heave properties (Reed et al 1979); and qualitatively with macroscopic volume changes-consolidation- (Delage and Lefebvre 1984;Griffiths and Joshi 1989;Coulon and Bruand 1989;Tessier et al 1992;Qi et al 1996). Regarding unsaturated soils, MIP results have been used to predict the water retention properties (Prapaharan et al 1985;Romero et al 1999;Aung et al 2001;Simms andYanful 2002, 2005); as well as macroscopic volume changes due to the effects of mechanical and hydraulic paths (Al-Mukhtar 1995;Al-Mukhtar et al 1996;Qi et al 1996, Cui et al 2002Simms and Yanful 2004;Cuisinier and Laloui 2004;Lloret et al 2004;Romero et al 2005;Koliji et al 2006b;Hoffmann et al 2007). Observed correlations between the water retention, volume change, and water permeability in unsaturated soils with the PSD as measured by MIP are presented in this report.…”

“…In unsaturated soils, microscopic examination of the soil structure have traditionally concentrated on compacted soils, focusing on the aggregation or matrix structure of different states in the dynamic compaction curve, as well as on their relationship with main properties related to engineering behaviour, such as strength, compressibility and water permeability (Barden and Sides 1970;Ahmed et al 1974;Osipov and Sokolov 1978b;GarciaBengochea et al 1979;Prapaharan et al 1985Prapaharan et al , 1991Tessier et al 1992;Delage and Graham 1996). These studies have illustrated that the microstructure of a given compacted soil is not unique, and strongly depends on the paths followed to reach a given point in the compaction plot.…”

Influence of drying–wetting cycles on soil-water characteristic curve of undisturbed granite residual soils and microstructure mechanism by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin-spin relaxation time (T2) relaxometry

“…Therefore, the shape of the SWCC is dependent upon the POSD of the soil. Some researchers attempted to obtain the SWCC through the POSD and capillary model (Prapaharan et al 1985;Olson 1985;Kong and Tan 2000;Aung, et al 2011;Beckett and Augarde 2013;Zeng, et al 2013). …”

Mechanical sensitivity to hydrochemical processes of Monastero Bormida clay

“…Water retention results are shown in Figure 12, jointly with the retention curve of intact MB2 material obtained from MIP results. In this last case, the injection of mercury has been admitted to be equivalent to the ejection of water for the same diameter of pores being intruded, as suggested by different authors [ Prapaharan et al , 1985; Romero et al , 1999]. As observed in Figure 12, the intact material displayed a reduced water storage capacity at low suctions (<1 MPa) as a consequence of the relatively low void ratio of this structural state.…”