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Hysteresis of saturation-capillary pressure relations under consecutive drainage-imbibition cycles in fine sandy medium

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Abstract

The hysteresis of saturation-capillary pressure (S-p) relations was investigated in a fine sandy medium under consecutive drainage-imbibition cycles, which resulted from scheduled water level fluctuations. A drainage-imbibition cycle starts with a drainage process and ends with an imbibition process in sequence. The saturation and capillary pressure were measured online with time domain reflectometry (TDR) probes and T5 tensiometers, respectively. Results show that the relation between the degree of hysteresis and the number of the drainage-imbibition cycles is not obvious. However, the degree decreases with the increase of the initial water saturation of the imbibition processes in these drainage-imbibition cycles. The air-entry pressure of a sandy medium is also found to be constant, which is independent of the drainage-imbibition cycles and the initial water saturation of the drainage process. In all the imbibition processes, parameter α of the van Genuchten (VG) model decreases with the increase of the initial water saturation, which corresponds positively to the magnitude of the hysteresis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Xiao-xi Xie  (谢小茜) & Bei-cheng Xia  (夏北成)

  2. School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Yan Li  (李雁)

  3. Guangdong Huizhou Environmental Protection Agency, Huizhou, 516001, China

    Li-min Xu  (许丽敏)

  4. Guangdong Environmental Protection Engineering Research and Institute, Guangzhou, 510635, China

    Yu Su  (苏钰)

  5. Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Qing-bao Gu  (谷庆宝)

Authors
  1. Xiao-xi Xie  (谢小茜)
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  2. Yan Li  (李雁)
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  3. Bei-cheng Xia  (夏北成)
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  4. Li-min Xu  (许丽敏)
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  5. Yu Su  (苏钰)
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  6. Qing-bao Gu  (谷庆宝)
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Correspondence to Yan Li  (李雁).

Additional information

Foundation item: Project(41072182) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project(2010Z1-E101) supported by the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou City, China; Project(200809095) supported by the Special Funds for Environmental Nonprofit Research, China; Project(8151027501000008) supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China

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Xie, Xx., Li, Y., Xia, Bc. et al. Hysteresis of saturation-capillary pressure relations under consecutive drainage-imbibition cycles in fine sandy medium. J. Cent. South Univ. Technol. 19, 222–230 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-012-0995-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-012-0995-4

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