Equivalent Soil Pore Geometry to Determine Effective Water Permeability

Abstract

Knowledge of hydraulic properties is essential for predicting flow and transport in porous media. Previously, Unsal et al. presented a procedure to determine an equivalent pore size distribution and pore geometry of a sandstone core using effective air permeability values as a function of volumetric water content in conjunction with a genetic algorithm for optimization purposes. They also showed how the obtained equivalent pore size distribution and geometry could be used to obtain the water retention curve. In this technical note, we extend their work to predict the effective water permeability as a function of volumetric water content from the same information. As a check for the theoretically obtained effective water permeability values, we compared the predicted value at saturation with the measured value at saturation and to the predicted and measured effective air permeability values for a dry core. The four values, referred to as intrinsic permeability, were sufficiently close to give confidence in the procedure.