Soil-water characteristics curves of sands under one cycle of drying and wetting

• Main Author: Foo, Damien Weng Hai
• Other Authors: Leong Eng Choon
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Civil engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163449
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The amount of water retained in a soil in equilibrium at a given matric potential is characterized by the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC). For six sandy soils with various grain size distributions, SWCCs for drying and wetting were obtained using a flexible wall apparatus. The test data were best fitted to Fredlund and Xing's (1994) equation. When compared to uniform fine-grained sand, sands with better gradation have higher residual matric suction but lower air- and water-entry values. Additional observations were made based on the findings. Findings from this project show that air-entry values (AEV) were higher in sands with lower D10 values. The investigation also discovered a linear relationship between air-entry value and coefficient of uniformity. The water-entry value, on the other hand, has relationship with grain size distribution parameters. The hysteresis between dry and wetting is strongly affect by the grain size, grain size distribution and void ratio.