Open AccessConstitutive Model for Unfrozen Water Content in Subfreezing Unsaturated Soils
Author(s) -
Painter Scott L.,
Karra Satish
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
vadose zone journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.036
H-Index - 81
ISSN - 1539-1663
DOI - 10.2136/vzj2013.04.0071
Subject(s) - soil water , water content , richards equation , discontinuity (linguistics) , vadose zone , thermodynamics , chemistry , water flow , constitutive equation , classification of discontinuities , geotechnical engineering , soil science , geology , mathematics , physics , mathematical analysis , finite element method
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.