Water Retention Model of Unsaturated Soil Considering Capillarity and Adsorption in a Wide Suction Range

Le résumé fourni par la source

Existing models often fail to adequately capture the combined capillary and adsorption mechanisms governing water retention across a wide suction range. To address this, a new water retention model was proposed to characterize the combined effects of capillary and adsorption on the soil-water retention curve (SWRC). Based on a clarified retention mechanism for unsaturated soil, the relationship between suction and capillary water content was formulated by incorporating a Weibull function, which accounts for pore-size distribution characteristics and the cavitation effect. To validate its predictive capability, the proposed model was evaluated against three widely used SWRC models using the experimental data from nine different soil types. The results indicate that capillary force is dominant under low matric suction conditions. As the matric suction increases toward the dry regime, the adsorption mechanism (particularly van der Waals force) progressively becomes the dominant factor. The proposed model, which maintains clear physical significance throughout its formulation, shows excellent agreement between predicted values and experimental data. This comprehensive model successfully characterizes the water retention characteristics in a wide suction range and effectively describes the SWRCs for various types of soil.

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