Estimation of soil hydraulic properties with the cone permeameter: field studies
1999
Kodešová, Radka | Ordway, Sondra E. | Gribb, Molly M. | Šimůnek, Jiří
We present field application of the cone permeameter method for estimating soil hydraulic properties: the soil-moisture characteristic curve, θ(h), and the hydraulic conductivity function, K(h). The cone permeameter was designed to inject water into the soil under known pressure. The cumulative inflow volume and pressure heads measured with tensiometer rings at two locations above the water source are recorded in time. The observed data sets are analyzed using an inverse modeling method to predict the soil hydraulic properties. The device was field-tested for the first time in two types of sandy soil. Tests were always conducted with two sequentially applied pressure heads of different magnitudes for different experimental runs. After the water source was shut off, tensiometer measurements were continued to monitor the redistribution of water in the soil. To study the impact of one or two steps of applied pressure head on estimates of wetting soil hydraulic properties, we carried out numerical inversions for data from the injection (wetting) part of experiment, first with only one supply pressure head and then with two supply pressure heads. For selected tests we analyzed data from the entire experiment to investigate hysteresis of the soil hydraulic properties. The resulting soil hydraulic properties correspond well with those obtained with standard techniques.
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