Laboratory and In Situ Determination of Hydraulic Conductivity and Their Validity in Transient Seepage Analysis
1
Department of Civil Engineering and Construction, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA
2
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
3
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015, USA
4
US Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, Los Angeles, CA 90017, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Roger Falconer
Water 2021, 13(8), 1131; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081131
Received: 21 March 2021
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Revised: 9 April 2021
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Accepted: 16 April 2021
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Published: 20 April 2021
(This article belongs to the Section Hydrology)
This paper critically compares the use of laboratory tests against in situ tests combined with numerical seepage modeling to determine the hydraulic conductivity of natural soil deposits. Laboratory determination of hydraulic conductivity used the constant head permeability and oedometer tests on undisturbed Shelby tube and block soil samples. The auger hole method and Guelph permeameter tests were performed in the field. Groundwater table elevations in natural soil deposits with different hydraulic conductivity values were predicted using finite element seepage modeling and compared with field measurements to assess the various test results. Hydraulic conductivity values obtained by the auger hole method provide predictions that best match the groundwater table’s observed location at the field site. This observation indicates that hydraulic conductivity determined by the in situ test represents the actual conditions in the field better than that determined in a laboratory setting. The differences between the laboratory and in situ hydraulic conductivity values can be attributed to factors such as sample disturbance, soil anisotropy, fissures and cracks, and soil structure in addition to the conceptual and procedural differences in testing methods and effects of sample size.
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Keywords:
in situ permeability test; Guelph permeameter test; heterogeneities; auger hole test; oedometer test; soil sampling
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MDPI and ACS Style
Nam, S.; Gutierrez, M.; Diplas, P.; Petrie, J. Laboratory and In Situ Determination of Hydraulic Conductivity and Their Validity in Transient Seepage Analysis. Water 2021, 13, 1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081131
AMA Style
Nam S, Gutierrez M, Diplas P, Petrie J. Laboratory and In Situ Determination of Hydraulic Conductivity and Their Validity in Transient Seepage Analysis. Water. 2021; 13(8):1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081131
Chicago/Turabian StyleNam, Soonkie, Marte Gutierrez, Panayiotis Diplas, and John Petrie. 2021. "Laboratory and In Situ Determination of Hydraulic Conductivity and Their Validity in Transient Seepage Analysis" Water 13, no. 8: 1131. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081131
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