APPLICABILITY OF COLUMN DEVICES TO MEASURE THERMAL PROPERTIES IN POROUS MEDIA

Abstract

Soil thermal property data, especially as a function of water content, are currently not readily available. Demand for these data is, however, on the increase because of improvements in wider applications of soil heat and water transport models. Most of these investigations were focused in sandy soils, clayed soils or peat horticultural substrates, due to the different properties and applications of each ones. Otherwise, in order to partly fill the thermal gap soil properties studies into other types of soil, we focused this work in the relationship between thermal and hydraulic soil properties for a silt soil under laboratory conditions. Samples were obtained from Can Sol Road located in the Llobregat delta plain (NE of Spain). Small dual-needle sensors, employing the heat pulse methodology were used to measure the soil thermal diffusivity, volumetric specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity. A experimental soil column device with a specific design was used. Column device was monitorized to determine the volumetric water content and matric potential, as well as thermal properties. A continuous dataset was collected from data-logger which connected frequency domain probes and micro-tensiometers were used. Preliminary results allowed a rather complete understanding of the relation between thermal and hydraulic properties under laboratory scale. Also, dataset contributed to evaluate the column device as a well-constructed device for these types of experiments.