Guide Questions:
1. Define the total head in terms of water pressure,
elevation, and unit weight of water. What is the physical
meaning of total head?
The total head, in terms of water pressure, is the
sum of the pressure head and the elevation head. The
total head is the vertical distance expression of the
total pressure of a fluid.
2. Why do we use the hydrostatic definition of total
head instead of the Bernoulli definition of total head?
The hydrostatic definition of total head is
primarily used instead of Bernoulli’s because in the
hydrostatic definition the total head is absolute, but in
Bernoulli’s definition there is an additional head.
Water is at its static state in the hydrostatic while in
Bernoulli’s there is movement.
3. Why do we neglect the term v2/2g in defining the total
head in soil? ( v is the fluid velocity and g is the earth
gravity). Justify your answer with numbers.
The term v2/2g is neglected in defining the total
head in soil because its value is so small (less than 1 m/s)
that it can already be disregarded.
4. Define soil permeability. What are the dimensions
and units of permeability?
Soil permeability is the property of soil that
permits water or air to pass through it. Its unit is cm /
sec.
5. Does the permeability increase or decrease with
temperature?
The permeability increases with the increase in
temperature.
6. Name two laboratory tests used for determining soil
permeability. For which types of soils are they used?
Two laboratory tests are frequently used to
determine the permeability of soil: the constant head
method which is used for coarse grained soils and the
falling head method which is used for fine grained
soils.
7. Is the fluid velocity larger or smaller than the
discharge velocity? What is the relationship between
these velocities?
The fluid velocity is larger than the discharge
velocity and they are directly proportional to each
other.
8. Derive the expression for permeability for a falling
head test.
9. What is a typical range of permeability for gravel,
silts, and clays?
Typical Range of Permeability:
Gravels: greater than 10-1 cm/s; High permeability
Sands: 10-1 to 10-5 cm/s; Medium permeability
Silts: 10-5 to 10-7 cm/s; Low permeability
Clay: less than 10-7 cm/s; practically impermeable
Discussion
Permeability is a measure of the ease in which
water can flow through a soil volume. Several different
methods for determining the coefficient of
permeability for soils exist, including in-situ methods
and laboratory methods. In the laboratory, two
common tests are generally used to determine this soil
property. These two tests are the falling head
permeability test and the constant head permeability
test.
Constant Head Permeability Test is performed on
sands and gravel as the pore openings are large and
consequently high permeability. Falling-head
Permeability Test is performed on silts and clays as the
pore openings are small and thus low permeability. The
falling-head method is totally different from the
constant head methods in its initial setup; still, the
advantage to the falling-head method is that it can be
used for both fine-grained and coarse-grained soils.
There are various applications of falling head
permeability experiments. Falling Head Permeability
tests are used to determine the settlements in
structures, extensively used in planning the methods for
lowering the ground water table during construction,
used in designing grouting pressures and quantities for
soil stabilization, used widely in freeze thaw
movements in soils and it has vast applications in the
design of recharge pits. This is important in examining
the movement of contaminants through soil or when
characterizing flow nets.
Thus, the study of seepage of water through soil is
very important, with wide field applications. The
falling head method of determining permeability is
used for soil with low discharge, where as the constant
head permeability test is used for coarse-grained soils
with a reasonable discharge in each time. For very fine-
grained soil, capillarity permeability test is
suggested.
Conclusion
This experiment which is the Falling Head Method
is intended for determining the coefficient of
permeability of fine grained soils. The falling head
permeability test is a common laboratory testing
method used to determine the permeability of fine
grained soils with intermediate and low permeability
such as silts and clays.
It can be seen in our data that as the cross-
sectional area of the soil specimen decreases with the
increase of the coefficient of permeability. It was also
established that the total time required for the
quantity to be discharged during the test were
inversely proportional to the coefficient of
permeability. Furthermore, the cross-sectional area of
the standpipe and the length of the specimen was
found to be directly proportional to the coefficient of
permeability.
The measure of the value of the coefficient that
can be obtained in falling head permeability test
should be less than 10-3 cm/s. In the two trials that we
performed the coefficient of permeability that we
acquired were 0.00256 cm/sec and 0.002178 cm/sec
respectively. The average coefficient of permeability
we obtained 0.002369cm/sec.
