Language selection

Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada

Search

Soil moisture suction: its importance and measurement

From National Research Council Canada

Download
  1. (PDF, 1.2 MiB)
AuthorSearch for: 1
Affiliation
  1. National Research Council of Canada
FormatText, Article
Subjectproperties of soils; moisture content; vapor pressure; porosity
Abstract
Perhaps the greatest development in soil mechanics has been in understanding the mechanical behavior of saturated soils. More recently attempts have been made to deal with soils in the unsaturated state. Under these conditions the behavior of the soil depends to a large extent on the moisture status, which for many purposes can be usefully expressed in terms of "suction," commonly known also as moisture tension or negative hydraulic potential. The identity of suction with relative vapor pressure and hence free energy is given together with the advantages of measuring the former in the region of high relative vapor pressures. Since the behavior of water in soils and many related porous materials is simlilar, the suction concept is not limited to soil. Both the apparatus and technique used for determining soil moisture suction and unsaturated permeability are described together with the use of the methods in soil engineering.
Publication date
In
  • Proceedings of the American Society for Testing and Materials 58 (1 July 1959): 1205–1217.
LanguageEnglish
Peer reviewedNo
IdentifierDBR-TP-76
NRC numberNRCC 4994
NRC-IRC-251
NPARC number20374733
Export citationExport as RIS
Report a correctionReport a correction (opens in a new tab)
Record identifier99573d35-7542-456f-ba52-6b26b28cbd4d
Record created2012-07-23
Record modified2023-12-22
Date modified: