Title: The Characteristic Curves
1The Characteristic Curves
- Now for the real excitement putting the solid
and fluid together!
2A simple thought experiment
- (1) Find a Bukner funnel with pores much smaller
than the pores in the soil sample. - (2) Attach a long water-filled tube which
connects the funnel to a graduated cylinder half
full of water. - (3) Place a thin slice of dry soil on the top of
the porous plate. - (4) Keeps track of the amount of water which
enters and exits the soil sample as you raise and
lower the tube.
3A word about porous media...
- Must be careful not to exceed the air entry
pressure of the porous plate
4Back to our experiment...
- We will continue through three stages
- (1) First (main) wetting,
- (2) First (main) drying, and
- (3) re-wetting (primary wetting).
5The first step get the soil wet
- (1) MAIN WETTING. Incrementally elevate beaker
until water level is at soil height. Measure the
water drawn up by the soil as H goes from Pentry
to 0. Each measurement is taken allowing the
system to come to a steady state. Measuring
elevation, H, as positive upward, the pressure
applied to the water in this soil will be given
by - Psoil ?wgH 2.54
6Now dry it, then re-wet...
- (2) MAIN DRAINING. Lower the end of the tube,
and apply a suction to the water in the soil
while measuring outflow. - (3) PRIMARY WETTING. repeat (1).
- This experiment illustrates most of the physics
which control the retention and movement of
fluids through porous media
(2)
(3)
7Simplified System
- Illustration of Haines jumps
- Filling
- no water enters until the head becomes greater
than -2?/r1 - When this pressure is exceeded, the pores will
suddenly fill - In the draining process
- first the outer pores will drain
- When the head becomes less than -2?/r2 all but
isolated pores drain as air can finally enter the
necks
8So lets go through this step by step
- Main wetting curve labeled (1) (2) (3)
- More water is taken up by the soil as the beaker
comes closer to the elevation of the soil (i.e.,
as the negative pressure of the feed water
decreases)
Pressure
Water Content
9Following the draining process
- Main draining curve labeled (3) (4) (5)
- Why doesnt this follow the wetting curve?
- Haines jumps and other sources of hysteresis
- Degree of saturation is a function of pressure
and the history of wetting of the pore - For this reason, the wetting and drying curves
for soil are referred to as hysteretic. More on
this as we proceed...
Pressure
Water Content
10Particle size to Characteristic Curves
- (a) Particles distributed between dmin and dmax
- (b) Pore size distribution similar
- The ordinate goes from mass of particles, to
volume of pores. - (c) Laplaces eq. relate pore size filling
pressure of each pore. - Plot becomes filling pressure vs. volume of
pores. - (d) Finally note volume of pores degree of
saturation.
11Identifying break points
- hw is as the pressure at which the largest group
of pore bodies fill. - rmax 2?/hw
- ha is diameter of the typical pore
throats rthroat 2?/ha - ?r Why doesnt the soil drain completely?
- Chemically bound water
- Fluid held in the very small radius regions at
particle contacts. - ?su Some pores don't fill due to gas trapping (?
10)
Pressure
Water Content
12A bit of Terminology
- Pendular volumes of liquid which are
hydraulically isolated from nearby fluid - Funicular liquid which is in hydraulic
connection with the bulk fluid.
13A few more scanning curves
- So we have gone to and from the extremes.
- Note that we can also reverse the process in the
middle as shown at (6) (7) and (8) - These are examples of primary, secondary, and
tertiary scanning curves
Pressure
Water Content
14Hysteresis
- Sources
- Haines Jumps
- Contact Angle
- How to deal with it
- Independent Domain Models
- General Model
- Similarity Models
15Contact Angle Youngs Equation
- What should the angle of contact between the
solid and fluid be, and why? - At equilibrium, forces balance at the point of
contact. - Considering horizontal components
- Along the horizontal plane (right negative, left
positive) - ?F 0 Fsl - Fsg Flg cos? 2.55
16Youngs Eq. continued
- ?F 0 Fsl - Fsg Flg cos? 2.55
- Fsg solid-gas surface force/length
- Fsl solid-liquid force /length
- Flg liquid-gas surface force /length.
- Per unit length, Fik sik, so may put in terms
of the relative surface tensions - ?sg ?sl ?lg cos? 2.56
17Interpretation of Youngs
- Solving 2.56 for the contact angle we find
- Physical limits on possible values of ?
- The contact angle is bounded by 0o lt ? lt 180o.
So if the operand of cos-1 is greater than 1,
then ? will be 0o, while if the value is less
than -1, the value will be 180o. - Often true that (?sg - ?sl) gt ?lg for water, the
contact angle for water going into geologic
material is often taken to be 0o.
18Hysteresis In the Contact Angle
- Contact angle differs for advancing and receding
cases. - Rain-drop effect Why a drop of water on a flat
plate will not start to move as soon as you tilt
the plate more energy is required to remove the
water from the trailing edge of the plate than
is given up by the sum of the gravitational
potential plus the energy released wetting the
plate. - The relevance of the rain-drop effect to
capillary hysteresis is simply an extension of
the observation regarding the plate and drop a
media will retain water more vigorously than it
will absorb water.
19Contact Angle Hysterisis the Rain Drop Effect
- What is the physical basis?
- At the microscopic level the Youngs-Laplace
equation is adhered to, - from a macroscopic point of view, the drip cannot
advance until the apparent contact angle is quite
large. - Upon retreat the macroscopic contact angle will
be much smaller than the true microscopic
magnitude - Same result from surface contamination.