Thermal Properties for Unsaturated Soils

Geoenvironmental Testing

“…Experimental studies on the effect of temperature on saturated clay-based materials have been recently reported by Burghignoli et al (2000), Delage et al (2000), Graham et al (2001), Sultan et al (2002), Cekerevac and Laloui (2004), and Cekerevac et al (2005). Extension of these studies to unsaturated engineered barriers made up of compacted swelling clays has been conducted more recently, mainly regarding the determination of water retention curves (Romero et al 2001a;Tang and Cui 2005;Duarte et al 2005;Villar et al 2005a) and the determination of thermal conductivity properties (Tang and Cui 2006;Duarte et al 2006). In contrast, available information concerning temperature effects on the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils is more limited, in spite of its practical relevance; a situation caused, at least in part, by the experimental difficulties presented below.…”

Thermal properties of a tropical unsaturated soil

“…where: O air = 0.026 Wm -1 K -1 , O water = 0.56 Wm -1 K -1 and O mineral = 3.0 Wm -1 K -1 . ]Thus, the mineral portion responds for most of the thermal conductivity, confirming the predominance of heat flow through soil solid phase [16,17]. However, as the thermal conductivity of air is less than that of water, dry soils tend to present lower thermal conductivities than saturated soils.…”