A fractal-based model for soil water characteristic curve over entire range of water content

Abstract

Soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) has been an important role in hydraulic engineering, civil engineer and petroleum engineering, etc. Most of SWCC models neglected the film flow in the dry state, so that they cannot accurately describe the SWCC over entire range of water content. In this work, an alternative fractal model is proposed to predict the SWCC over entire range of water content by combining Campbell and Shiozawa model and Tao model. The proposed model can well predict twelve sets of experimental data, and its parameters, including the fractal dimension, the saturated volumetric water content, the matric suction at oven-dry condition, and the air-entry value, accord with theoretical value. The results show that there is a strong linear relationship between volumetric water content and matrix suction in log-log scale for different fractal pore-size distribution of soils. In addition, good agreement is obtained between the experimental data and the model predictions in all of the cases. Cited as : Jin, T., Cai, X., Chen, Y., Jiang, S., Wei, W. A fractal-based model for soil water characteristic curve over entire range of water content. Capillarity, 2019, 2(4): 66-75, doi: 10.26804/capi.2019.04.02