The mechanical behavior of compressible clay soils may be strongly influenced by physicochemical effects when concentrated pore fluids are introduced to the soil. Conceptual models have been used to explain the influence of pore fluid chemistry on the mechanical behavior of clays in a qualitative way. In this paper an alternate macroscopic description of the osmotic volume change behavior of a ...

This article focuses on physical characteristics of snail soil from Ljubljana marsh and their influence on geomechanical characteristics. Mineral and chemical composition, visual appearance, specific surface and grain property of the snail soil were determined. The geomechanical characteristics were investigated for their dependence on the physical characteristics. These relationships are expre...

Tests were conducted to determine the variation of water content and pore water suction for compacted clayey soils. The soils had varying amounts of clay fraction with plasticities ranging from low to high plasticity. The unsaturated soil behavior was investigated for six conditions, covering a range of compactive efforts and water contents. The experimental data were fit to four commonly used ...

The percentage of soil pore space filled with water (percent waterfilled pores, % WFP), as determined by water content and total porosity, appears to be closely related to soil microbial activity under different tillage regimes. Soil incubated in the laboratory at 60% WFP supported maximum aerobic microbial activity as determined by CO2 production and O2 uptake. In the field, % WFP of surface n...

Process-based agricultural system models require detailed description of soil hydraulic properties that are usually not available. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the sensitivity of model simulation results to variability in measured soil hydraulic properties and to compare simulation results using measured and default soil parameters. To do so, we measured soil water retention cu...

In engineering practice submerged soils are commonly considered to be saturated and consequently the pore fluid may be regarded as incompressible. At shallow water depths this two-phase model is not in accordance with natural conditions. Even small quantities of gas bubbles change the stiffness properties of the pore fluid dramatically. In response to external fluctuating pressures, the gas bub...

Toxicity of cadmium to Folsomia candida was determined in soils at different pHs (3.5, 5.0, and 6.5). The Langmuir sorption constant (K(L)), based on pore-water or water-extractable concentrations, showed a pH-related increase of cadmium sorption that was most pronounced when using free Cd2+ ion activities ([Cd2+]s). Two-species Langmuir isotherms that used total cadmium concentration ([Cd]) or...

introduction: soil hydraulic conductivity is considered as one of the most important hydraulic properties in water and solutionmovement in porous media. in recent years, variousmodels as pedo-transfer functions, fractal models and scaling technique are used to estimate the soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (ks). fractal models with two subset of two (solid and pore) and three phases (solid,...

Microbial breakthrough curves of 12 soils, generated by the application of dairy shed effluent followed by continuous artificial rainfall for one pore volume at 5 mm h(-1) onto large undisturbed soil cores, have been ranked as high, medium, or low potential for microbial bypass flow. The ranking is based on the position of the peak in the breakthrough curve. Knowledge of soil properties that af...