Constitutive Model for Unfrozen Water Content in Subfreezing Unsaturated Soils. Issue 4 (17th April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Painter, Scott L.; Karra, Satish
• Is Part Of: Vadose zone journal. Volume 13:Issue 4(2014)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 8
• Publication Date: 2014-04-17
• Subjects: Soil science -- Periodicals; Zone of aeration -- Periodicals; Groundwater flow -- Periodicals; Groundwater flow; Zone of aeration; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 631.4
• DOI: 10.2136/vzj2013.04.0071
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1539-1663

Abstract

Abstract : A new constitutive relationship for phase partitioning of water in frozen soils is proposed. This relationship extends to unsaturated conditions established relationships for gas‐free conditions by smoothing a thermodynamically derived relationship to eliminate a jump discontinuity at the freezing temperature. This relationship is shown to compare well with experimental data on unfrozen water content as a function of temperature for different total water content values. Using this new relationship, a modified nonisothermal Richards equation is solved for flow in freezing soil. The results based on this modified Richards equation are shown to compare well with data from two different column experiments.