Laboratory and Physical Prototype Tests for the Investigation of Hydraulic Hysteresis of Pyroclastic Soils

Autor: Marianna Pirone, Alfredo Reder, Guido Rianna, Luca Pagano, Marco Valerio Nicotera, Gianfranco Urciuoli
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Geosciences, Vol 10, Iss 8, p 320 (2020)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2076-3263
DOI: 10.3390/geosciences10080320
Popis: Proper soil water retention curves (SWRCs) are necessary for a fair analysis of groundwater flow in unsaturated slopes. The question is whether hydraulic parameters operating in situ can be reliably determined from laboratory tests or physical prototype models in order to interpret and predict soil water distributions in the field. In this paper, some results obtained by tests at different scales (testing on laboratory specimens and a physical prototype) are presented to explore the hydraulic behavior of pyroclastic soils. A theoretical interpretation of the observed behavior in the laboratory and using a physical prototype is proposed by adopting the hysteretic model of Lenhard and Parker. For each tested soil, the main hysteretic loop determined by interpreting experimental tests (at laboratory and prototype scales) overlaps with paths detected by coupling the field measurements of matric suction and water content collected at the site at the same depth. From these results, the physical prototype (medium scale) and the soil specimen (small scale) seem to be acceptable for determinations of SWRC, provided that the air entrapment value is well known.
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