Water content dependence of trapped air in two soils

Abstract

An improved air pycnometer method was used to examine the water content dependence of trapped‐air volumes in two repacked, nonswelling soils. Trapped‐air volumes were determined at a series of hydrostatic equilibrium stages which were attained during water pressure‐controlled wetting and drying cycles over a range of 0 to −10 kPa for a sand and 0 to −20 kPa for a loam. Small pressure perturbations, between 0.2 and 0.6 kPa, were used in the air pycnometer method. Volumes of trapped air obtained at each hydrostatic equilibrium stage were independent of perturbation level and remained relatively constant over the time required to make repeated determinations. In contrast with most of the results obtained in previous studies, which often showed irregular relations, in this study the volume fraction of trapped air was found to be a regular, monotonically increasing (though possibly hysteretic) function of water content. For the soils studied, the function definitely exceeded zero only at water contents greater than 70% of saturation. However, during the initial drying from complete water saturation, the volume fraction of trapped air was virtually zero. Air trapping influenced the water retention curves significantly only at water contents higher than about 60% of saturation. Except at zero water pressure, however, not all of the differences between the initial and the other drying retention curves were accounted for by observed differences in trapped‐air volumes. Air trapping was not required for the onset of hysteresis in the water retention relation for the cases studied, i.e., when drying‐to‐wetting reversals were imposed at about 27% and 40% of saturation for the sand and loam soils, respectively.