Methods Used to Determine

Hydraulic Conductivity /
Permeability
Background
Hydraulic Conductivity, K, is essential to
understanding flow through soils.
Darcys Law
Richards Equation
Advection-Dispersion-Equation
Soil characteristics that determine K
Particle size
Porosity
Bulk density

More about K
K is a function of pressure or moisture
content
low matric potential = high moisture
content = high K
Want to know either
Saturated hydraulic conductivity, K
s
, or
Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, K.


Other considerations
What should the sample size be?
Where to conduct experiment?
How is the water applied?

Sample size
Contemporary soil core devices.
Representative Elementary Volume (REV).
Experiment location
Field
Advantages
Soil is undisturbed.
Disadvantages
Cant control the environment.
Logistics.
Laboratory
Advantages
Highly controlled environment.
Disadvantages
Sample can be aggravated during transport.
Facilities
Water Application
Ideally, the soil should be wetted from
the bottom up.
Should use a deaerated 0.005 M
CaSO
4
solution to limit air retention.
What volume of water is required and
what volume is available.
Determining K
s

Laboratory Methods
Constant head
Falling head
Field Methods
Test basins
Note: for each method.
good contact must be made at the lateral
boundaries of the core.
Evaporation must be measured.
Constant Head Method
Wet the column from the bottom up.
Can be a problem depending on sample size.
Add water until its at the desired height.
Hydraulic gradient = 1 (Figure 10.1a)
Macropore collapse? Need a different gradient.
(Figure 10.1b)

Capture the outflow, when its rate becomes
constant K
s
is obtained.

L y x
L
H
L
+
=
Constant Head Apparatus
L is length through the soil
y is the height of ponded water
x is the height of water required to lower
the gradient so that y can be maintained.
Note: if the gradient is 1 then K
s
= q as
per Darcys Law.
L y x
L
H
L
+
=
Falling Head Method
Wet the column from the bottom up.
Fill a burette to above the height of the soil
column and allow it to drain.
Drain until the rate of head loss is constant.
(Figure 11.1)
K
aL
A t t
H
H
s =

(
|
\

|
.
|
( )
log
2 1
2
1
Falling Head Apparatus
a is the cross-sectional area of the
burette
A is the cross-sectional area of the soil
column
t
2
t
1
is the time required for the head
to drop from H
1
to H
2
.
K
aL
A t t
H
H
s =

(
|
\

|
.
|
( )
log
2 1
2
1
Test Basin Method
Isolate a column of soil
Usually much larger than a core to be used
in the laboratory.
Seal the lateral faces of the column
Ensure the column is saturated
Apply a constant head of water at rate P.
Obtain K
s
using a mass balance
approach: I = P - E where, K
s
is equal to I
since the soil is saturated.


K
s
Method Summary
The constant head method is used for
soil with a high K
s
(> 0.001 cm/s).
The falling head method is used for
soils with lower K
s
(10
-3
- 10
-6
cm/s).
Laboratory experiments can obtain K
s
in
each dimension.
Determining Unsaturated K
Field methods
Ring infiltrometer.
Laboratory methods
Instantaneous profile method.

Note: ensure that all instruments make
good contact with soil.


Ring Infiltrometer
Used either in the field or laboratory.
Can use either one or two rings.
Scale dependent on ring size.
2 rings allows vertical K to be isolated.
Can measure K when the matric
potential,
m
, is > 0.
When
m
is 0 a surface crust of a known
potential can be used.

Ring Infiltrometer Method
Isolate soil column as in other methods.
Place the infiltrometer on the soil,
ensuring good contact.
Water is ponded on the soil and the
infiltration rate recorded.
Unsaturated K is determined using the
Richards equation.
Ring Infiltrometer
Double Ring
Water Supply
Instantaneous Profile Method
Uses tensiometers and gamma ray
absorption to measure matric potential, |,
and moisture content, u, respectively.
Pond water until the outflow is constant
and then start the experiment when the
last of the water has entered the soil.
K is obtained using
ou
o
o
o
o|
o t z
K
z
=
|
\

|
.
|
Instantaneous Profile Method
TDRs
Gamma Ray
Emitter
Gamma
Ray
Detector
Tensiometers
Unsaturated K Method
Summary
Ring infiltrometer
Different sample sizes require different
rings and sometimes infiltrometers.
Water can be hard to provide depending
on the sample size.
Have to ensure good contact with soil.
Instantaneous profile method
Expensive to operate and hard to set up.
Have to ensure good contact with the soil.

Conclusion/Recommendations
Methods described allow for determining
K in most settings.
Its hard to account for macropore flow.
There is no method for determining
horizontal K in situ.
Scales of measure are subject to criticism.
Example
Find the hydraulic conductivity of the sands used in
Darcys first series experiments (Refer the Figure),
assuming that the height of the sand column is 3 m and the
diameter of the stand pipe is 0.35 m.
FIGURE: Darcys data plotted by Hubbert.
Solution.
Take the flow rate Q = 30 l/min = 0.03 m
3
/min.
The specific discharge is q = Q/A
= 0.03/( 0.35
2
/4)
= 0.312 m/min.
We have the equation,

that yields, K = qL/h
From the graph h = 10.5 m.
Thus
K = 0.312 3.0/10.5
= 0.089 m/min or 0.0015 m/sec.
This corresponds to a coarse sand.

Example
Find the time it takes for a molecule of water to move from a
factory to a bore hole located 4 km away in a homogeneous
silty sand unconfined aquifer with a hydraulic conductivity of
K = 5 10
5
m/sec or 4.32 m/d, an effective porosity of 0.4
and observing that the water table drops 12 m from the factory
to the bore hole.
Solution.
As a simple approximation v = q/n
e
= Ki/n
e

and the pore velocity is calculated as

Since, t = s/v, it would take
time = 4000/(0.0324 365) 338 yr.

If instead, the aquifer was a fractured limestone with a
porosity of 0.01 and the hydraulic conductivity the same,
the pore velocity would be approximately 1.3 m/d and the
time to travel the 4 km would be 8.5 yr.
With a porosity of 0.001 the travel time would reduce to
0.85 yr or about 10 months.
Pumping at the bore hole will increase the hydraulic
gradient and increase the pore velocity and thus decrease
the travel time.
Example
Consider the case of the confined aquifer that is recharged
from an unconfined aquifer through an aquitard. The
recharge rate is 0.3 m/yr or 8.2210
4
m/d. The water table
is at H = 30 m above the datum. The aquitard is 2 m thick
and its vertical hydraulic conductivity is K=10
3
m/d. The
unconfined aquifer is 20 m thick and has a hydraulic
conductivity K = 10
1
m/d. Find the piezometric head h at
the bottom of the unconfined aquifer and the difference in
elevation between the water table and the piezometric
surface of the confined aquifer.
Solution.
Let y be the height of the piezometric surface over the top of the aquitard
and z the difference in elevation between the water table and the
piezometric surface (see Figure).
Applying Darcys law between points A and B i.e. using the Equation

8.22 104 = 101(H h)/(y + z).
h = H 8.22 10
3
(y + z) = 30 8.22 10
3
(20) = 29.84 m.
Writing Darcys equation between the top and the bottom of the aquitard
yields
8.22 10
4
= 10
3
(h h)/b,
thus
h = h 8.22 10
1
b = 29.84 8.22 10
1
2 = 28.20.
Hence,
z = H h = 30 28.20 = 1.80 m.
A
A
B B