ISSN:
1573-1634
Keywords:
Mercury
;
porosimetry
;
threshold
;
capillary network
;
bubble network
;
random distribution
;
random network
;
pore space
;
texture
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Technology
Notes:
Abstract At the textural level, it is possible to consider the organization of soil components as a characteristic feature of those materials. This organization confers a pore space specific to the clay phase and a lacunar pore space which is present between clay masses. The lacunar pore space may be regarded as a generally continuous network, whose dimensions are much larger than those of the clay pore space. Mercury porosimetry is a technique for characterizing the size of this pore space. Nevertheless, the obtained data cannot be used directly for various reasons related to pore shape and arrangement. Therefore, a study was conducted to better determine limitations of the available data. This study is based on mercury intrusion simulations in fictitious capillary and ‘bubble’ networks. The conclusion is that it is impossible to obtain the actual pore size distribution of soil lacunar pore space. The data permit us to define only a value connected with a threshold. This threshold is related to the mean value of bonds per node and to the distribution of bond constrictions. So, it seems that any use of the mercury porosimetric data to characterize the soil lacunar pore space has to be careful.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00959101
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