Relationship between the Permeability and Frozen Void Ratio of Saturated Fine-Grained Soils

Abstract

It would be very convenient if the permeability of a fine-grained soil could be predicted by simple index properties such as a void ratio. The difficulty is considered to be the uniqueness of water's property in such a soil. In order to effectively evaluate the permeability of a fine-grained soil, a new definition of soil's void ratio was proposed as a result of a freezing test. In this study, the following conclusions are obtained : 1) A new index called “frozen void ratio” is defined as a ratio of the volume of frozen water at a certain temperature below a zero degree Celsius to the volume of soil particles and unfrozen water ; 2) It was shown that under the reported test condition the frozen void ratio at -1°C most closely related to the permeability of a soil ; and 3) It was demonstrated that the Kozeny-Carman equation may be applied to a fine grained soil if the frozen void ratio is used instead of the conventional void ratio.