Conceptual Hydraulic Conductivity Model for Unsaturated Soils at Low Degree of Saturation and Its Application to the Study of Capillary Barrier Systems

Scarfone, Riccardo; Wheeler, Simon J.; Lloret-Cabot, Martí

doi:10.1061/(asce)gt.1943-5606.0002357

Cited by 20 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…reduces to the "bulk water-continuity value" of the coarser layer, at which the hydraulic conductivity of the C.L. starts increasing significantly (Scarfone et al, 2020). At this point, water breakthrough occurs from the F.L.…”

Section: Drying)mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…He demonstrated this by presenting hysteretic versions of the modified Brooks and Corey (modBC) and modified Kosugi (modK) SWRC models described earlier. Scarfone et al (2020) recently showed that the conventional Mualem (1976) model, following the general approach adopted by Peters (2013), the hydraulic conductivity kl can be split into two components:…”

Section: Scanning Retention Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bulk water component kl Bulk (Scarfone et al, 2020) is calculated by using a modified version of the Mualem model (modM) which can be written as:…”

Section: Shcc Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 The empirical hysteretic SWRC models are also typically used in conjunction with a conventional SHCC expression, such as Mualem (1976), for the hydraulic conductivity behaviour. Although the conventional SWRC and SHCC expressions are able to represent well the retention and hydraulic conductivity behaviour of unsaturated soils at medium and high values of degree of saturation, they are unreliable at very low values of degree of saturation, in the pendular condition, when the soil pores all contain air and the liquid water present in the soil is only in the forms of meniscus water bridges around particle contacts and thin liquid films around each soil particle (Scarfone et al, 2020). In addition, little consideration has been given to whether combination of a given hysteretic SWRC model with a conventional SHCC expression, such as Mualem (1976), results in appropriate representation of any hysteresis in the hydraulic conductivity behaviour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A hysteretic hydraulic constitutive model for unsaturated soils and application to capillary barrier systems

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Lloret-Cabot

2022

Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment

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Section: Drying)mentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Scanning Retention Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The bulk water component kl Bulk (Scarfone et al, 2020) is calculated by using a modified version of the Mualem model (modM) which can be written as:…”

Section: Shcc Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A hysteretic hydraulic constitutive model for unsaturated soils and application to capillary barrier systems

Scarfone

Wheeler

Lloret-Cabot

2022

Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment

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“…Numerical analyses were conducted by Rahardjo et al [22] to determine the thickness and length of the fine-and coarse-grained materials of the capillary barrier system. Scarfone et al [23,24] used advanced numerical modeling to extensively study the effectiveness of capillary barrier systems in introducing water retention hysteresis into the hydraulic behavior of unsaturated soils, considering a new hydraulic conductivity model at a low degree of saturation, and the complex phenomenon of soil-atmosphere interaction in the long term.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capillary Barriers during Rainfall Events in Pyroclastic Deposits of the Vesuvian Area

et al. 2021

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In the present paper, the capillary barrier formation at the interface between soil layers, which is characterized by textural discontinuities, has been analyzed. This mechanism has been investigated by means of a finite element model of a two-layer soil stratification. The two considered formations, belonging to the pyroclastic succession of the “Pomici di Base” Plinian eruption (22 ka, Santacroce et al., 2008) of the Somma–Vesuvius volcano, are affected by shallow instability phenomena likely caused by progressive saturation during the rainfall events. This mechanism could be compatible with the formation of capillary barriers at the interface between layers of different grain size distributions during infiltration. One-dimensional infiltration into the stratified soil was parametrically simulated considering rainfall events of increasing intensity and duration. The variations in the suction and degree of saturation over time allowed for the evaluation of stability variations in the layers, which were assumed as part of stratified unsaturated infinite slopes.

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Upgraded closed‐form soil hydraulic functions from oven dryness to saturation

Wang

2023

Hydrological Processes

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In the past decades, remarkable progresses have been made in developing soil water retention (SWR) functions and relative hydraulic conductivity (kr) models for the full range of matric suction. However, such an existing SWR function and the corresponding kr model were found not to have a consistent prediction performance, that is, for a given soil, the SWR function could perform very well but the kr model might perform poorly or even fail. Given that both water retention and hydraulic conductivity need to be accurately predicted to simulate land‐atmosphere interactions, vadose‐zone soil–water dynamics, and shallow groundwater recharges, this paper proposed an upgraded SWR function and derived a new closed‐form kr model by combining the function with the well‐known Mualem model. The upgradation was done by introducing an exponential function for the pendular (i.e., dry and very dry) range of matric suction. The SWR function and kr model keep the conventional simplicity, reflect the capillary versus adsorptive soil–water mechanisms, eliminate fictitious parameters, and are continuously differentiable with closed forms. The assessment using the experimental data for 35 soils with nine different textures indicated that the upgraded SWR function and new kr model reproduced the data more accurately than the existing functions and models, as measured by visualization plots and four statistics, namely coefficient of determination, sum squared error, root mean squared error, and Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency. The contribution of this paper is to overcome the inconsistent‐performance issue mentioned above.

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Conceptual Hydraulic Conductivity Model for Unsaturated Soils at Low Degree of Saturation and Its Application to the Study of Capillary Barrier Systems

Abstract: (2020) 'Conceptual hydraulic conductivity model for unsaturated soils at low degree of saturation and its application to the study of capillary barrier systems.', Journal of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering., 146 (10). 04020106.

Cited by 20 publications

References 45 publications

A hysteretic hydraulic constitutive model for unsaturated soils and application to capillary barrier systems

A hysteretic hydraulic constitutive model for unsaturated soils and application to capillary barrier systems

Capillary Barriers during Rainfall Events in Pyroclastic Deposits of the Vesuvian Area

Upgraded closed‐form soil hydraulic functions from oven dryness to saturation

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