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Thermal Conductivity of Gypseous Soil under Different Temperatures

Conference Paper · October 2014

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Thermal Conductivity of Gypseous Soil under Different
Temperatures

A. A. H. Al-Obaidi1, A. A. Al-Karawi2
1
Civil Engineering Department, Tikrit University, e-mail: consulteng_tik@yahoo.com, Obaidi.a.h.@tu.edu.iq
2
Civil Engineering Department, Tikrit University, e-mail: civileng88_2010@yahoo.com

Abstract
Soil thermal properties are of great importance in many engineering projects and other situations where heat
transfer takes place in the soil. For example, they are of great importance in the design of roads, airfields,
pipelines or buildings, as well as underground power cables, hot water pipes or cold. Gas pipelines in unfrozen
ground. The thermal conductivity of a soil is defined as the amount of heat passing in unit time through a unit
cross-sectional area of the sail under a unit temperature a gradient applied in the direction of this heat flow.
In this research the effect of gypsum content, time and temperature on the thermal conductivity of gypseous soils
were investigated. Thermal Needle Probe Procedure was used to determine thermal conductivity in soil with
gypsum content of (20%, 40%, and 60%), also these soil had been exposed to different temperatures (25, 75,
110, and 150) degree centigrade for durations of (1, 3, and 7) days .The soils used were borrowed from depth of
(1m) from different locations and classified as highly to moderately poorly graded Sands, (SP). The results of the
laboratory experiments show that gypsum content affect on the thermal conductivity of soil, where a reduction in
thermal conductivity was notes as the gypsum content increased with constant soil density and moisture content.
This decrement in thermal conductivity reduced as the temperature subjected to soil increased. Increasing the
duration of temperature exposed to soil decreased thermal conductivity. Finally simple charts correlated the
gypsum content, temperature, and deflagrating the gypsum in soils were developed to estimate the thermal
conductivity of gypseous soil.

Keywords: thermal conductivity, gypseous soil, Thermal Needle Probe

1 Introduction
The heat transfer through porous media has attracted the attention of many researchers, where many studies,
experiments and research indicated that the heat transfer through the porous media depends on the thermal
resistivity and specific heat in addition to the thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity of the material
porosity. Soil is considered one of the porous materials and therefore, the soil thermal properties have a great
importance in many engineering projects and sites that the heat transfer is required through the soil, for example:
-
1. Roads and airports projects, (which the heat moves from the surface to the soil beneath)
2. Electrical cables in power stations and power transmission
3. Hot water pipes buried in the soil, especially in cold regions
4. Liquid gas pipelines
5. Also the soil thermal properties are required in numerous agricultural, hydrological and industrial
applications.
Gypseous soils are those which contain appreciable amount of gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O) to change or affect
construction adversely. They are present in dry arid to semi-arid regions where sources of Calcium Sulfate exist.
Gypsum has specific gravity of (2.32) and its solubility is 0.2 %. Gypsum is found in many soils in amounts
ranging from traces to several percent. Various authors have been described that gypsum accumulation occurs in
two ways: by evaporation of mineralized ground water and by the precipitation within the ground water itself,
(FAO, 1990). Gypseous soils occupy about 1.865 million km2 in the world; the percent of gypseous in Iraq is

1
6.7% of the total world gypsiferous area and covered about 28.6% of the total area of this country. The gypsum
percent may be reached 70% in some Iraqi soils. Many foundation failure problems that occur are associated
with the percolation of water and dissolving of gypsum, (Al-Obaidi and Tawfeeq, 2009). Rapid and extensive
development in Iraq has recently led to the execution of an enormous number of construction projects,
establishment of power stations plant and extending the gas pipeline in addition to roads, airports. This resulted
in the utilization of virgin lands for such large constructions and urbanization program.
Also factors such as the depth of the work carried out under the soil (cables and pipes) and acts of agriculture
and forestry, which are displayed to the cycles of soil moisture and drying, this may lead to the occurrence of
cracks in the soil and the emergence of air gaps which inevitably will change the thermal properties of the soil,
(Al-Obaidi 1999).

2 Fundamentals of Soil Thermal Conductivity

The thermal conductivity of a soil (λ) is defined as the amount of heat passing in unit time through a unit cross-
sectional area of the soil under a unit temperature a gradient applied in the direction of this heat flow. The
common units used for thermal conductivity of soil are W/m K (Watts per meter per Kelvin), (Farouki, 1981).

2.1 Factors affecting the Thermal Conductivity in the Soil

The thermal conductivity of a soil depends on several factors. Some of these are refer to soil and others can be
controlled by human management. Those properties that inherent to the soil itself includes soil texture and
mineralogy composition, water content, density and soil management, (Yadav and Saxena, 1973). Table (1)
shows the thermal conductivity of various soil materials.

Table 1. Thermal conductivity of soil constituents at 20° and 1 atm (after IEEE Std 442-1996)

Material Density Thermal conductivity

(gm/cm3) (W/m K) **
Quartz 2.65 8.4
Many soil minerals* 2.65 2.9
Soil organic matter* 1.30 0.25
water 1.00 0.6
air 0.0012 0.026
*Approximate average values
** 1 degree Celsius = 274.15 Kelvin

This table reflects that the thermal conductivity of soil components extremely varies, and the soil thermal
conductivity depends on mineralogy composition and the amount of organic matter beside the volumetric of air
and water in the voids, thus the apparent thermal conductivity of wet soil as a mixture of three phases is function
of water and air content, (Bristow, 2002). The thermal conductivity of the soil depends on several factors which
can be divided into two groups, the first linked to the soil and its properties , which include mineral composition
and geological, water content and density , while the second concerned the conditions and factors surrounding
that depend on the type of material emitting or receiving heat , (Abu-Hamdeh and Randall, 2000).
The effect of water content on thermal conductivity has received more attention than other factors, (Riha et
al., 1980). For all soil studied, they found that the method of water diffusion in the soil has a great effect on
thermal conductivity, in addition to increasing in moisture content at a fixed density increased thermal
conductivity and increasing bulk density at a given moisture content increased thermal conductivity. Brandon
and Mitchell, (1989), studied the factors affected on thermal resistivity of sandy soils (inverse of thermal
conductivity), and they conclude that (1) Heat conduction through the minerals is an important mechanism of
heat transfer in a sand, (2) Since the percentage of minerals, as compared to air, increases with increasing dry
density, the greater the dry density of a soil, the lower the thermal resistivity, (3) Well-graded soils conduct heat
better than poorly graded soils and, (4) The thermal resistivity of sand decreases with increasing water content
because water acts as an additional medium for conductive heat transfer. In another research, Fragkogiannis, et al
(2010) found that the thermal conductivity increases until a certain value of saturation that differs with the
granule arrange of the sample. The rate of increase is high until saturation values of 20 - 30% and then it
becomes lower up to certain saturation where thermal conductivity values seem to be stabilized, Abu-Hamdeh
and Randall, (2000) concluded that thermal conductivity increased with increasing density as a result of better
particle contact with a decrease in porosity and a greater mass of solids per unit volume. The effect of porosity

2
on thermal properties was more pronounced at higher soil water contents than at lower water contents, Smits et
al. (2009).
The effect of salts on thermal conductivity have received little attention, and studied to date have left
much uncertain. Van Rooyen and Winterkorn (1959) found no noticeable effect of salts on thermal conductivity
of quartz sand at high solution contents with concentrations of CaCl2 or NaCl. On the other hand, (Noborio and
McInnes (1993) found that the apparent thermal conductivity of soil decreased with increased CaCl2, MgCl2,
NaCl, or Na2SO4 salt concentration. The effect of organic matter on thermal conductivity was investigated by
Abu-Hamdeh and Randall, (2000) and they found that increasing percentage of soil organic matter decreases
thermal conductivity and these values was higher for sand than clay loam for the same concentrations.

2-2 Gypseous Soil and its Formation

Gypseous soils can be found in many region in the world and attributed of its engineering properties to the
presence of gypsum in which the range by less than (1%) to (90%), gypsum works as a binder between soil
particles so that gypseous soils are strong and firm when dry. The formation of gypseous soil was a result of (1)
the evaporation of saline water from the soil, (2) weathering and the melting of gypsum rocks, the gypsum
particles deposited in a new form, (3) chemical reactions in the soil or transmission of gypsum particles by wind
and mixing with other soils, (Al-Kaisi 1997).
Most researchers consider that the soils contain more than (2%) of gypsum classified as gypseous soils, while
Al-Barzanji, (1973) distinguished classes of gypsiferous soils based on the gypsum content as shown in Table
(2).
Gypsum, hydrated calcium sulfates, contains two water molecules in its chemical composition, CaSO4.2H2O.
This hydration water is lost in stages according to the degree of temperature. Figure (1) shows the relation
between temperature and the water lost Gypsum start to loose the crystallization water at about 50° C. as
temperature continues to increase the gypsum turns to hemihydrate, CaSO4.½H2O, and about 100° C all the
hydration water lost and the material becomes anhydrate CaSO4, (Klein and Hulbut 1985)

Figure 1. Dehydration of gypsum with temperature, (after Klein and Hurlbut, 1985)

3 Materials and Testing Procedure

The soil samples were brought from Tikrit city, which is located in Salah-Aldeen Governorate, in the middle of
Iraq. All the soils used in this study were collected at a depth of about 1.0 meters and classified as dense poorly
graded SAND with little fines, (SP) with different gypsum content. The classification, engineering properties are
shown in Table (2).
Thermal conductivity of soils was measured using the single probe methodology, (ASTM D5334, 2010). In
this method, a line heat source, i.e., a thin straight wire through which a constant electric current is passed
generating constant heat is installed and a thermocouple is glued to it. This heater wire of the thermal probe
connected to the constant current source. to start the test, applying the a known constant current (for example
equal to 1.0 A) to the heater wire such that the temperature change is less than 10 K in 1000 s and reading the
temperature at 0, 5,10,30,45, and 60 s, then take readings at 30-s time intervals for a minimum of 1000 S. and
finally turn off the constant current source. In this study measurements of thermal conductivity were made on
three types of soil with different gypsum content : ( 20 % , 40% and 60% ) subjected to different temperature
(25C, 75C , 110 C , and 150 C) with different periods time ( 1,3,7 days).

3
 Table 2. Properties of soil samples

Properties Samples
Group .1 Group .2 Group.3
Water content (ω%) 2.18 3.02 2.97
Specific gravity (Gs) 2.61 2.59 2.58
Liquid limits (L.L %) 18.54 16.89 16.04
Plastic Index (P.I %) N.P N.P N.P
M.I.T classification
Gravel 3 4 3
Sand 95 94 94
Fines 2 2 3
USCS SP SP SP
Field density (kN/m3) 13.35 13.27 13.25
Gypsum content % 19.61 40.32 59.80
Total soluble Salts % 22.84 44.88 64.09
Organic Matters % 1.01 0.89 0.56

4 Presentations of the Practical Implications of the Tests and Discussion

The thermal conductivity of (30) undisturbed gypseous soil samples as function of gypsum content, temperature
variation, and duration time of exposure to various degrees of heat is drawn and shown in Figures (2) through
(6). In all these figures, the thermal conductivity was measured in (W/m. K).
Figure (2) shows the relationship between the thermal conductivity and gypsum content in these soils. The
thermal conductivity of gypseous sandy soils decreases as the gypsum content in the soil increased, this
reduction in thermal conductivity decay as the gypsum content increased. This ethologic reflected that gypsum in
the soil as a kind of salt leads to reduce the value of the thermal conductivity of the soil as observed by many
researchers, also the thermal conductivity decreases as the amount of temperature that the soil exposed increased.
The increment in temperature will cause to burn more molecule of water in the gypsum crystal and turns into
gypsum anhydrous as the evaporation of this molecule will lead to reduced bulk density and thus reduce the
value of thermal conductivity, despised that gypsum has burned at high temperatures, but this effect will not
significantly affect the increase thermal conductivity due to the decrease in the gypsum content in the soil
As planned in testing program, thermal conductivity of the soil was found firstly at temperature of 25° C
(approximately the ground temperature), then samples were subjected to different temperatures (75° C, 110° C,
and 150° C), respectively. Figure (3) shows the relationship between the thermal conductivity of the soil and the
amount of temperature exposed. In this figure the values of the thermal conductivity of the soil decreases with
increasing exposure temperatures where the lowest value was obtained at gypsum content (60%) at temperature
of 150°C.
It appears clearly that the reduction in thermal conductivity as is due to evaporate of the water molecule in
the gypsum crystal and therefore, the bulk density of the soil decreases in general, and this led to a decrease in
the values of the thermal conductivity of the soil.
The effect of the time period of exposure to the soil at different temperatures was observed through Figures
(4), (5), and (6), the exposed period was (one day, three days, and seven days). Thermal conductivities of soils
decrease as the period of exposure increased, and the most reduction occurred at the first period .
The relationship between thermal conductivity and gypsum content and temperature was drown in three
dimensional space as shown in Figure (7), this figure can be considered as a design chart used to estimate the
thermal conductivity of gypseous soils.

5 Conclusions
The existence of gypsum affects the engineering properties of the soil; many major projects have suffered from
several problems related to construction on or by gypseous soils. These problems could happen due to special
circumstances causing dissolution of gypsum. In this study, through laboratory experiments on undisturbed
gypseous soil samples with different gypsum content revealed that the values of the thermal conductivity
affected by the existing of gypsum in the soil. For all soils studied, an increase in gypsum content decreased the
thermal conductivity at constant density and moisture content. Sand gypseous soil exposed to increase in
temperature exhibit to reduction the thermal conductivity values, and this reduction decreases as the period of the
exposition in temperature increased more than one day. Finally, the thermal properties of gypseous soils must be

4
considered especially at high gypsum content, the design chart in Figure (10) may useful to estimate the changes
in thermal conductivity

3.5 3.5
25 degree Gyps 20%
75 degree Gyps 40%
3 110 degree 3 Gyps 60%

Conductivirt (W/m K)
Conductivity W/m K

150 degree
2.5 2.5

2 2

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5
0 20 40 60 80 0 50 100 150 200
Gypsum content % Temperature C

Figure 2. Thermal conductivity as function of Figure 3. Thermal conductivity as function of

gypsum content at different exposed temperature for different gypsum content
temperature

3.5 3.5
Gyps 20% Gyps 20%
3 Gyps 40% Gyps 40%
Gyps 60% 3
Gyps 60%
Conductivity (W/m K)

2.5 2.5
Conductivity (W/m k)

2 2

1.5 1.5

1 1

0.5 0.5
0 2 4 6 8 0 2 4 6 8
Days Days

Figure 4. Thermal conductivity as function of Figure 5. Thermal conductivity as function of

duration of exposure to soil in days at duration of exposure to soil in days at
temperature of (75° C) for soil with temperature of (110° C) for soil with
different gypsum content different gypsum content

3.5
Gyps 20%
Gyps 40%
3 Gyps 60%
Conductivity (W/ m K)

2.5

1.5

0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Days

Figure 6. Thermal conductivity as function of duration of exposure to soil in days at temperature of (150° C) for
soil with different gypsum content

5
 Figure 7. Design chart to estimate the thermal conductivity of gypseous soils for different gypsum content and
temperature

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