Estimation of unsaturated flow parameters and hysteresis curve from field instrumentation

¹ SUNY Polytechnic Institute, College of Engineering, 100 Seymour Road, Utica, NY 13502, USA
² Prairie View A&M University, Civil Engineering Department, 100 University Drive, Prairie View, TX 77446, USA
³ University of Texas at Arlington, Civil Engineering Department, 416 Yates Street, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
⁴ University of Texas at Arlington, Civil Engineering Department, 416 Yates Street, Arlington, TX 76019, USA

^* Corresponding author: asif.ahmed@sunypoly.edu

Abstract

The negative pore water pressure or soil suction has significant effect on the performance of geotechnical infrastructures (e.g., slope, pavement, embankment etc.). The unsaturated behavior of soil is not static, rather offers variation in response to climatic loading. The objective of the study was to evaluate field-based techniques of SWCC construction in terms of capturing these variation as compared to laboratory methods and predictive models. The field assessment could allow the quantification of hysteresis effect on the SWCC. Instrumentation data from one Texas, USA highway was used in this study. Soil Water Characteristic Curves (SWCCs) were regenerated utilizing co-located moisture and suction data from the field. Laboratory and field measured SWCCs from the instrumented site were fitted by van Genuchten model. Previously developed predicted models were also utilized to evaluate the SWCC parameters. Based on the evapotranspiration and rainfall amounts, distinct drying and wetting cycles were recorded. Though hourly data was collected in this study, average daily values were used for the analysis. Unsaturated flow parameters (α, n, m) were determined from both laboratory testing and field moisture-suction data along with the predictive models. Clear differences were observed between the values obtained from predictive models and field generated SWCC. The outcome from this study revealed that field reconstructed SWCCs can be used to simulate higher precision in numerical modeling in numerous geotechnical applications.