16th Annual Brace Research Day

08th November, 2017

Macdonald Campus/McGill University

Hydraulic characteristics of a coarse

grained soil used for drainage experiments
Naresh Gaj, M.Sc. , B.Eng (Civil)
Professor Chandra A. Madramootoo
Water Innovation Lab
Macdonald Campus
McGill University
h2oinnovation.bioresource
@mcgill.ca
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Outline of Presentation
• Research background
• Saturated hydraulic conductivity (k sat)
• Measuring ksat
• Empirical relationships
• Method - laboratory tests
• Findings
• Next steps
• References
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Research background
Drainage experiments using sand tanks

Investigate the influence of perforations

on subsurface or tile drain pipes

3
Research background
Determine the hydraulic characteristics
of the test sand through:
 Laboratory tests
 Empirical relationships

Estimate the saturated

hydraulic conductivity (ksat)

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Saturated hydraulic conductivity (ksat)
• Henry Darcy (1803-1858)

or

• coefficient of proportionality ksat,

giving Q  k A H
sat
L
• ksat = saturated hydraulic conductivity
scalar with dimensions of LT-1 Source: http://hydrogeologists.org/uncategorized/the-darcy-law/

(Bear, 1990) Darcy’s Experimental Set up

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Saturated hydraulic conductivity (ksat)
What does it represent physically?

A measure of how “water” moves through

continuous pores in a porous medium.

ksat is dependent on the:

a) type of fluid Source (modified): http://www.tankonyvtar.hu/en/

b) properties of the porous medium tartalom/tamop425/0032_talajtan/ch06s06.html

Typical Soil-Pore Structure

Permeability (K) – porous medium only (Selvadurai, 2015)

Kg g is acceleration due to gravity
k sat  vs is the fluid’s kinematic viscosity
s
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Measuring ksat

Empirical Laboratory
relationships methods

In-situ
(field)
methods
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Empirical relationships
1) Hazen (1892)

k sat  100  d 2 ; d - size at 10% finer (cm)

10
10

ksat (cm/s)

2) Kozeny-Carmen (1937)
1.99  104  d eff2  e3 
k sat    ; deff - effective size*

SF 2
 1  e SF - shape factor
e - void ratio
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Empirical relationships

3)Terzaghi (1955)

k sat  2  d  e; d
2
10
2
10 - size at 10% finer (mm),
e - void ratio
ksat (cm/s)

4) Particle Size Distribution (Wang et al., 2017)

3.2 10  d
4 2
k sat  10
13.093  log10 d 60
3

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Method - laboratory tests
Particle Size Distribution PSD γd Gs
(ASTM D 422)

Dry Densities γd
•d10 e
(ASTM D 698 & D 4254)
•d60
Specific Gravity Gs
(ASTM D 854)

ksat
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Findings - PSD
N=6 Silt Sand Gravel
Fine Medium Coarse
100

90

80

70
Percentage Finer

60

50

40

30

20

10

0 d60 = 0.7 mm
0.01 0.10 d10 = 0.32 mm 1.00 10.00
Grain Size (mm)

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Findings - γd
Compaction Curve (Standard Proctor)
16.0

15.9

15.8

γd max = 15.68 kN/m3

15.7
Dry Unit Weight, γd (kN m-3)

15.6

15.5 γd max = 15.56 kN/m3

Sample B2
15.4 Sample B3

15.3

15.2

15.1

15.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Water Content, w (%)

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 Findings – emax and emin
Gs   w Gs = 2.65
e 1
d γw = 9.807 kN/m3
γd min γd max
Sample emax emin
3 3
kN/m kN/m
B2 14.30 0.818 15.56 0.671
14.19 0.831
14.19 0.831
B3 14.19 0.831 15.68 0.658
14.30 0.818
14.35 0.811
AVG 0.82 0.65
STD 0.01 0.01
CV 1.06% 1.39%

For clean sands emax = 1.0 and emin = 0.4 (Lambe and Whitman, 1969)
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 Findings - ksat
Ksat (m/day)
Sample ID Kozeny-Carman Terzaghi
Hazen PSD
e = 0.65 e = 0.82 e = 0.65 e = 0.82
B1S1 144 263 75 119 88 78
B1S2 144 263 75 119 88 78
B1S3 144 263 75 119 88 78
B2S1 133 242 75 119 88 78
B2S2 157 286 84 134 99 88
B2S3 135 246 75 119 88 78
AVG 143 261 77 122 90 80
STD 8 14 3 6 4 4
CV 5.4% 5.5% 4.4% 4.6% 4.6% 4.7%

For clean sands ksat = 864 to 8.64 m/day (Craig, 1987; Harr, 1962)

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Next steps
 Validating ksat using the constant head test
(ASTM D 2434)

 Completing series of sand tank experiments for

various perforation patterns and hydraulic
conditions

 Simulating the sand tank conditions using a

numerical model

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References
Bear, J. and Verruijt, A.(1972). Modelling Groundwater Flow and
Pollution: D. Reidel Publishing, Holland.
Carrier, W.D. (2003). “Goodbye, Hazen; Hello, Kozeny-Carman.” J.
Geotech. & Geoenv. Eng., ( ASCE) 129: 11, 1054-1056
Craig, R.F. (1987). Soil Mechanics: 4th ed, Chapman and Hall, London,
UK.
Harr, M.E. (1962). Groundwater and Seepage: McGraw-Hill, USA.
Lambe, T.W. and Whitman, R.V. (1969). Soil Mechanics: John Wiley and
Sons, New York, USA.
Selvadurai, A.P.S. (2015). Mechanics of Groundwater Flow: Course notes
for CIVE 584, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Wang, J.P., François, B. and Lambert, P. (2017). “Equations for hydraulic
conductivity estimation from particle size distribution: A dimensional
analysis.” Water Resour. Res., 53,.

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Thank You!
Questions?

Water Innovation Lab

Macdonald Campus
McGill University
h2oinnovation.bioresource
@mcgill.ca
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