5.

Soil Water Characteristic Curve(SWCC) is an essential prerequisite in understanding various

unsaturated soil phenomena. Laboratory or field evaluation of SWCC is rather complex and also
more expensive. For ease and rapid use of practitioners, researchers developed different analytical
methods to predict SWCC. These methods predict SWCC using grain size distribution (GSD) of a given
soil. These methods are found to be effective for coarse grained soils but not for fine grained soils.
Several parameters like soil structure stress state, mineralogy, stress history, specific surface,
chemical composition. Surface activity soil chemistry etc affect the SWCC of unsaturated fine grained
soils. For fine grained soils SWCC is derived from easy to determine parameters like Atterberg limit
and clay fraction rather than grain size distribution. A reliable estimation of air entry value(AEV) and
rate of desaturation is required for obtaining SWCC. It is difficult to obtain reliable AEV from
conventional soil properties. One point measurement of gravimetric water content in the matric
suction range of 50-500kPa gives an estimation of AEV. The desaturation line can be obtained if a
point in the desaturation line is known. The intercept of desaturation line on the suction axis can be
estimated and taken as one required point. This value lies within a narrow range for fine grained
soils. After locating the desaturation line a corresponding gravimetric water content point for a
suction value in a very narrow range over which fine grained soil exhibit linear desaturation is
determined. One data point of suction vs water content is determined using appropriate
measurement technique. The information on two data points one estimated point and other
measured point can be fitted using appropriate equations

References

Catana, M. C., Vanapalli, S. K. and Garga, V.k. 2006. The water retention characteristics of compacted
clays. In unsaturated Soils 2006(pp. 1348-1359).

Vanapalli, S.K., Fredlund, D.G., and Pufahl, D.E. 1999. The Influence of Soil Structure and Stress
History on the SoilWater Characteristics of a Compacted Till. Geotechnique 49, No. 2,( pp. 143-159).