Determining the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of a compacted sand-bentonite mixture under constant-volume and free-swell conditions

By Yu-Jun Cui, A. Tang, C. Loiseau, P. Delage. 2008

192 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Highly compacted sand–bentonite mixtures are often considered as possible engineered barriers in deep high-level radioactive waste disposals. In situ, the saturation of these barriers from their initially unsaturated state is a complex hydro-mechanical coupled process in which temperature effects also play a role. The key parameter of this process is the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of the barrier. In this paper, isothermal infiltration experiments were conducted to determine the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity according to the instantaneous profile method. To do so, total suction changes were monitored at different locations along the soil specimen by using resistive relative humidity probes. Three constant-volume infiltration tests were conducted showing, unexpectedly, a decrease of the hydraulic conductivity during infiltration. One test performed under free-swell conditions showed the opposite and standard trend. These observations were interpreted in terms of microstructure changes during wetting, both under constant-volume and free-swell conditions.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/be9f563bd9de7dc16078f5d2667cbf5f8b5c2fbb

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Civil and Structural Engineering

1. W. Ye
2. Yu-Jun Cui
3. A. Tang
4. J. Barnichon
5. Qiong Wang
6. Bao Chen
7. Simona Saba
8. Yong-gui Chen

In Environmental Engineering

1. W. Ye
2. Bao Chen
3. Yu-Jun Cui
4. A. Tang
5. Qiong Wang
6. J. Barnichon

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

1. W. Ye
2. A. Tang
3. J. Barnichon
4. Yu-Jun Cui
5. Qiong Wang
6. Simona Saba

Citations in the corpus

• Hydraulic conductivity and microstructure changes of compacted bentonite/sand mixture during hydration (2013, methodology): “It should be noted that after saturation, the hydraulic conductivity has been found to be time dependent (Loiseau et al., 2002; Cui et al., 2008).”
• Temperature effects on the unsaturated permeability of the densely compacted GMZ01 bentonite under confined conditions (2012, methodology): “The resistive relative humidity (RH) sensors (Cui et al, 2008) were used to 133 monitor the RH changes.”