Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e5

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Geotextiles and Geomembranes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geotexmem

Technical note

Electrical resistance method for assessing spatial variation of water

content in geosynthetics clay liners at laboratory scale
Hossam M. Abuel-Naga a, *, Abdelmalek Bouazza b, 1
a
b

Civil Engineering Discipline, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Vic. 3086, Australia

Department of Civil Engineering, 23 College Walk, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic. 3800, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 20 September 2014
Received in revised form
22 June 2015
Accepted 1 July 2015
Available online xxx

Non-uniform moisture distribution throughout pre-hydrated geosynthetics clay liner (GCL) laboratory
testing specimens could signicantly affect their liquid/gas permeability test results. For a reliable
comparison between different pre-hydrated GCL specimens, uniform moisture distribution condition
should be ensured before testing their permeabilities. This study presents a simple non-destructive
electrical probing approach to assess the moisture homogeneity of GCL specimens before their use in
laboratory tests. An experimental program was conducted to check the feasibility and the validity of the
proposed method on GCLs hydrated at different moisture contents. The outcomes of the experimental
program prove the adequacy of the proposed method.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
GCL
Liner
Landll
Moisture
Homogeneity
Electrical resistance

1. Introduction
Geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) are most typically comprised of a
thin layer of bentonite contained between two layers of geotextile
with the components being held together by needle-punching or
stitch bonding. They are widely used in lining systems of modern
waste containment facilities to minimise migration of contaminants and gases (Bouazza, 2002; Rowe, 2012, 2014). In this respect,
there is a wide body of work available on their hydraulic and/gas
barrier performance (Shackelford et al., 2000; Bouazza and
Vangpaisal, 2004, 2006, 2007; Benson et al., 2010; Gates and
Bouazza, 2010; Scalia and Benson, 2011; Bradshaw et al., 2013;
Mazzieri et al., 2013; Rowe and Abdelatty, 2013; Abuel-Naga
et al., 2013, Abuel-Naga and Bouazza, 2014; Hosney and Rowe,
2014a,b; Ashe et al., 2014, 2015; Bouazza and Gates, 2014; Liu et al.,
2013, 2014, 2015; Rowe and Hosney, 2015; Take et al., 2015; Rouf
et al., 2015).
Several studies have shown the importance of GCL initial hydration with a non-chemically aggressive hydration uid to

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 61 394791181.

E-mail addresses: h.naga@latrobe.edu.au (H.M. Abuel-Naga), malek.bouazza@
monash.edu (A. Bouazza).
1
Tel.: 61 3 9905 4956; fax: 61 3 9905 4944.

improve its chemical compatibility to leachates or other more

aggressive solutions (Vasko et al., 2001; Lee and Shackelford, 2005;
Katsumi et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2015). In common practice, initial
hydration of GCL could be achieved through a passive process in
which water vapour is transferred from the subgrade to the GCL if
there is no intimate contact (Rouf et al., 2014) or through an active
process where moisture can be taken from the subgrade in liquid
form if there is an intimate contact between the subgrade and the
GCL (Rayhani et al., 2011).
To assess the effect of the initial pre-hydration on the hydraulic/
gas performance of GCL at the laboratory scale, GCL specimens are
usually pre-hydrated to different moisture content targets (Vasko
et al., 2001; Vangpaisal and Bouazza, 2004; Katsumi et al., 2008).
Furthermore, a homogenous moisture content distribution
throughout the GCL specimen must be achieved otherwise the
hydraulic conductivity and/or gas permeability of heterogeneously
pre-hydrated GCLs to contaminant solutes and/or gas can become
unreliable (Katsumi et al., 2008; Bouazza and Vangpaisal, 2003;
Vangpaisal and Bouazza, 2004). This is due to the presence of
preferential ow paths caused by a non-uniform distribution of
moisture content in the GCL.
The usual practice of verifying the moisture content distribution
in a GCL specimen is to conduct destructive tests (Bouazza and
Vangpaisal, 2003; Bouazza et al., 2014) which involves cutting the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.07.002
0266-1144/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Abuel-Naga, H.M., Bouazza, A., Electrical resistance method for assessing spatial variation of water content in
geosynthetics clay liners at laboratory scale, Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.07.002

H.M. Abuel-Naga, A. Bouazza / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e5

specimen in several slices and oven dry them for 24 h. This process
is most often repeated if the target moisture content distribution is
not reached in laboratory experiments. This paper presents a simple non-destructive technique to assess the homogeneity of the
moisture content in a GCL specimen using an electrical resistance
method.
2. Proposed methodology
A non-destructive electrical resistance probing approach is
proposed in this study to assess the moisture homogeneity of GCL
specimens. The electrical resistivity of porous media is mainly
function of moisture content and several other parameters such as
temperature, soil structure, texture, mineralogy, and the salt content of the water (Archie, 1942; Gupta and Hanks, 1972; Rhoades

guen and Palciauskas, 1992; Kalinski and Kelly,
et al., 1976; Gue
1993; Abu-Hassanein et al., 1996; McCarter and Desmazes, 1997;
Revil et al., 1998; Seladji et al., 2010; Beck et al., 2011; Kibria and
Hossain, 2012). The general premise behind the use of electrical
resistivity measurements for assessing the moisture homogeneity
of a GCL specimen is based on the assumption that the bentonite
layer of GCL specimen has homogenous properties in terms of
density, structure, texture, mineralogy, and water salt content. This
assumption could be supported by the fact that GCLs are man-made
materials that usually go through quality control (QC) and quality
assurance (QA) procedures to ensure the homogeneity condition of
the materials. Therefore, the spatial variability of the electrical resistivity measurements could be directly linked to the moisture
content distribution within the GCL specimen. However, it should
be mentioned that the validity of this method to assess the moisture homogeneity is limited by the fact that the rate of change of
electrical resistivity for clays decreases as moisture content increases to become almost zero when the degree of saturation exceeds 70% (McCarter, 1984). However, Rayhani et al. (2008) showed
that for different types of GCL the maximum degree of saturation
due to GCL hydration from subsoil could be in the range of 60%e
80%. Therefore, the valid working range of the electrical resistance
method proposed in this study ts with the purpose of verifying the
moisture distribution of a pre-hydrated GCL laboratory testing
specimen.
In this study a modied oedometer cell (Fig. 1) was used to
quantify the spatial variation of the electrical resistivity throughout
a GCL specimen. The cell is made of PVC material and can accommodate a GCL specimen having up to 100 mm diameter. The
Wenner four-electrode method (Wenner, 1915; ASTM G57-06,
2012) for measuring the electrical resistivity was incorporated
into the top cap as shown in Fig. 1. The electrical resistivity of the
GCL specimen can be measured at different radial sections by
rotating the top cap in-plan. Therefore, this method enables radial
scanning of the average moisture contents throughout the GCL
specimen.
The Wenner four-electrode method is usually used to measure
soil resistivity in the eld. The method involves using four cooper
electrodes placed with equal separation, a (cm), in a straight line in
the surface. A voltage is applied between the outer electrodes where
the corresponding current, I, and the voltage drop between the
inner electrodes, V, are measured. The resistivity, r (U cm), is then:

r 2p a V=I

(1)

It should be mentioned that the measured r by the Wenner

four-electrode method represents the average resistivity of a
hemisphere of soil of a radius approximately proportional in homogenous media to the electrode separation where the term (2pa)
is a geometrical factor dened based on a semi-innite boundary

Fig. 1. Electrical resistivity cell.

condition (half-space). However, this geometric boundary condition is not applicable for the cell shown in Fig. 1. As the geometric
boundary conditions of every radial section through the GCL
specimen are similar and the main purpose of the measurements is
to assess the homogeneity throughout the specimen rather than
the actual resistivity (r) of the GCL, the electrical resistance measurements, R V/I, can be used instead of r for this purpose.
In this study 10 DC voltages was impressed across the outer
electrodes where the current injection time duration and delay
were 10.0 s and 0.0 s, respectively. The voltage drop across the inner
electrodes and the current across the outer electrodes were recorded with resolution of 250 mV, and 10 nA, respectively.
3. Material and specimen preparation
Table 1 lists the properties of the GCL material used in this study.
A GCL sample was cut from a large GCL sheet, using a sharp utility
knife, to an A4 size. A circular stainless steel cutting ring with an
inner diameter of 100 mm was used to cut the GCL specimen. The
GCL A4 size sample was placed between the cutting ring and a
plywood plate, which was used as a cutting base. The whole set was
then placed on the platen of a compression machine to cut the GCL
specimen to the required size.
The pre-hydration process of the GCL involved immersing the
cutting ring with the GCL specimen still inside in de-ionized water
for different time durations (30 s, 60 s) to obtain specimens with
different pre-hydrated moisture contents. Once the immersion
process was completed, the GCL still in its cutting ring was stored in
a double plastic bag for two-week curing under zero pressure
connement. This could represent the case when the GCL begins
hydrating before the placement of a soil cover. The average moisture content (wcavg) achieved was 49% and 113%, respectively, for
immersion times of 30 s and 60 s, respectively. After completion of
the curing period, the GCL was carefully pushed from the cutting
ring into the electrical resistivity cell.

Please cite this article in press as: Abuel-Naga, H.M., Bouazza, A., Electrical resistance method for assessing spatial variation of water content in
geosynthetics clay liners at laboratory scale, Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.07.002

H.M. Abuel-Naga, A. Bouazza / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e5

Table 1
GCL properties.
GCL mass per unit area (kg/m2)
As-received GCL thickness (mm)
Mineral composition of bentonite

5.35
8 to 9
90% smectite, 4% cristobalite, 3% quartz,
and 3% Ca-albite
Atterberg limits
LL 405%
PI 351%
Bentonite form
Powder
2
Bentonite mass per unit area (kg/m ) 4.7
Cover geotextile type; mass per
Nonwoven geotextile; 0.27
unit area (kg/m2)
Nonwoven geotextile reinforced by a
Carrier geotextile; mass per unit
woven geotextile; 0.38
area (kg/m2)
Bonding method
Needle-punched, thermally treated
Swelling pressure (kPa)
175

Furthermore, one GCL specimen was pre-hydrated using the

vapour equilibrium technique where it was placed in a desiccator
and was subjected to a humid air (relative humidity RH 100%)
circulated through a pump for one year as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 3
shows the weight of the water adsorbed by the GCL specimen
during this period (i.e 1 year). The results indicate that the vapour
equilibrium system relying on humid air circulation was able to
raise the average moisture content of the GCL specimen from z10%
to only 18.6%. Similar behaviour was reported by Fu et al. (1990)
and Vasko et al. (2001).

Fig. 3. Adsorbed water of the GCL specimen hydrated by vapour equilibrium

technique.

4. Validation of the proposed method

The moisture homogeneity test was conducted by rotating inplan the top cap in increments of 5 over the range of 360 and
measuring the electrical resistance, R, at each position, as shown in
Fig. 4a, where the normalized electrical resistance, RN, is expressed
as follows:


RN R Ravg

(2)

where Ravg is the average electrical resistance value. A vertical

stress of about 10 kPa was applied during the measurements of the
electrical resistance to achieve a good contact between the electrical pins and the GCL specimen. Three rotations were conducted
to check the repeatability of the measured R values and satisfactory
results were obtained as shown in Fig. 4a. The observed variability
of the resistivity measurements between the three rotations, up to
35%, could be attributed to the possible change in the contact
condition between ER points and GCL geotextile layer for each
rotation. The average electrical resistance distribution is shown in
Fig. 4b.

Fig. 2. Vapour equilibrium cell.

Fig. 4. Electrical resistance and moisture content distribution of the GCL sample
submerged in water for 60 s (wcavg 113%).

Please cite this article in press as: Abuel-Naga, H.M., Bouazza, A., Electrical resistance method for assessing spatial variation of water content in
geosynthetics clay liners at laboratory scale, Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.07.002

H.M. Abuel-Naga, A. Bouazza / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e5

Fig. 7. Electrical resistance and moisture content distribution of the GCL sample hydrated by Vapour equilibrium technique (RH 100%) for a year (wcavg 18.60%).

5. Conclusions
Fig. 5. Cutting conguration of the GCL specimen to determine its water content
distribution.

As the change in the electrical resistance measurements

throughout the tested GCL specimen should be mainly attributed to
moisture content change, the inverse of the electrical resistance
distribution can be qualitatively used to express the moisture
content distribution. To verify this point, the GCL specimen was cut
into 6 equal slices at the end of the electrical resistivity test as
shown in Fig. 5. Then, the moisture content, wc, of each slice was
measured and normalised to the average moisture content value,
wcavg. The normalized moisture content, wcN, is expressed as
follows:


wcN wc wcavg

(3)

The average of RN values measured within each slice was plotted

in Fig. 4b, together with the normalized moisture content, wcN. The
results shown in Fig. 4b indicate with a reasonable condence that
the RN distribution is the inverse of the wcN distribution. Similar
behaviour was also observed for the other two GCL specimens as
shown in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. Therefore, the validity of the
electrical resistivity approach, proposed in this study, to qualitatively assess the moisture homogeneity of GCL samples is
conrmed.

Fig. 6. Electrical resistance and moisture content distribution GCL specimen submerged in water for 30 s (wcavg 49.30%).

A simple nondestructive electrical resistivity method using

Wenner four-electrode method was developed to verify the moisture content homogenity of GCL specimens where degree of saturation is less than 70%. The method makes use of the inverse
relationship between the electrical resistivity and moisture content
of porous media. Its validity was veried on several GCL specimens
hydrated at different moisture contents. The electrical resistance
distributions obtained by this method were compared against
moisture content distributions obtained by a destructive method
and a reasonable qualitative agreement was observed in terms of
matching the overall expected trend. The method is easily reproducible and can be used to characterise the moisture content distribution in GCL specimens used in the laboratory.
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geosynthetics clay liners at laboratory scale, Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.07.002

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Please cite this article in press as: Abuel-Naga, H.M., Bouazza, A., Electrical resistance method for assessing spatial variation of water content in
geosynthetics clay liners at laboratory scale, Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.07.002