Prediction of the soil-water characteristic curve based on the specific surface area of fine-grained soils

Abstract

This paper presents a new, mathematical expression for describing the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) over a range of water contents where fine-grained soils exhibit plastic properties. The finding that the relationship between the soil suction and the water content can be expressed in terms of the specific surface area of soils was based on experimentally determined relationships between the water content and the soil’s specific surface area, as well as between the thickness of the adsorbed water layer on the external surfaces of clay minerals and the quantity of free-pore water for the water content between the liquid and plastic limits. The double-porosity model for the pore-space geometry was considered, as well as that all the water in the clay-aggregates is adsorbed, and that the adsorption mechanism is dominated by the van der Waals forces. The validity and applicability of the proposed equation for the SWCC estimation was verified on three samples in which the SWCC was measured, as well as the specific surface area, the mineralogical and chemical compositions, the grain size distribution, and the Atterberg limits. Despite the fact that good correlations were found between the calculated parts of the SWCC and the measured, the practical applicability of the proposed equation remains problematic due to the values of Hamaker constant, which are not yet well defined for different minerals.