Date of Award

5-2021

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Civil Engineering (MCE)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee

James Bay

Committee

John Rice

Committee

Marv Halling

Abstract

The research presented in this paper serves to observe how the flow path factors relate to the void ratio, the effective diameter of a soil particle, and the permeability of a given sample assuming the behavior is consistent across natural and artificial soils. The basis of the comparison is the derived Kozeny-Carman Equation for permeability with focus on the factors Cs and Cl where Cs represents the shape of the flow path and Cl represents the length of the flow path that a single water molecule must travel through a soil sample. Permeameter tests were conducted for six types of material including three natural sands and two man-made samples to compare data. Man-made or unnatural samples included stainless steel pins and ceramic spheres. Four other natural sands were tested at both 50% and 90% relative density to compare data. Natural sands included C33 sand, Quartz sand, Fine Ottawa sand and Coarse Ottawa sand. It was observed that while the permeability of the samples was impacted by the geometry of the flow paths, as shown in the flow path factors CsCl, as well as the void ratios, it appears that the effective diameter Ds has a larger impact on permeability.

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