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Proceedings of Indian Geotechnical Conference

December 22-24,2013, Roorkee
A STUDY ON HYGROSCOPIC WATER CONTENT AND RESIDUAL WATER
CONTENT OF SOIL


C. Chinumani, Research Scholar, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, chinumani@iitg.ernet.in
C. Malaya, Assistant Professor, Assam Engineering College, gogoi_chetia@yahoo.co.in


ABSTRACT: Hygroscopic water (HW) is the water adsorbed by the soil from the environment due to
electromolecular surface forces and is greatly influenced by the relative humidity of the environment. On the other
hand, the residual water content (RWC) is a key parameter of soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) and is
defined as the minimum water content below which there is no appreciable change in water content with suction.
The SWCC is a graphical relationship between soil suction and water content (gravimetric or volumetric) and is
inevitable in the study of unsaturated soil-mechanics. The determination of SWCC is a costly and time consuming
process. There is a possibility of having a close relationship between HW content and RWC of soils as both the
water contents are dependent on the specific surface are of soils. With this in view, HW content and RWC have
been determined for ten soil samples. It must be noted that there are very few studies available in the literature on
the correlation between hygroscopic water content and residual water content of soil. Hence, an attempt has been
made to correlate hygroscopic water content of the soil with the residual water content. Such a correlation would be
of great help in predicting the RWC of soil by knowing its HW content.


INTRODUCTION
Hygroscopic water (HW) is the water adsorbed by
the soil from the environment due to
electromolecular surface forces, and is greatly
affected by the relative humidity [1]. On the other
hand, the residual water content (RWC) is a key
parameter of soil-water characteristic curve
(SWCC) and is defined as the minimum water
content below which there is no appreciable
change in water content with suction. SWCC is a
fundamental constitutive relationship in
unsaturated soil mechanics [2]. In general terms,
the SWCC describes the relationship between soil
suction and soil water content. More specifically,
the SWCC describes the thermodynamic potential
of the soil pore water relative to that of free water
as a function of the amount of water adsorbed by
the soil system. At relatively high value of water
content and correspondingly low values of suction,
the dominant pore water mechanism becomes
capillarity, governed primarily by the particle and
pore structure and pore size distribution. On the
other hand, at relatively low water content and
correspondingly high values of suction, where pore
water primarily in the form of thin films on the
particle surfaces, the mechanism contributing to
suction are the relatively short-range adsorption
effects governed by the surface properties of soil.
Since both the water content is dependent on
surface property of soil grains, it may be possible
that some relation may also exist between these
two parameters of soil. Therefore, the present study
investigates the relationship between HW content
and RWC of soil. The study indicates that there
exists a close relationship between these two water
contents of soil.

Theoretical Background
The study is carried out using Van Genuchten
(VG) (1980) [3] SWCC equation to analyze the
SWCC for the soil.

( )
s r
r m
n
......................(1)
1
a

= +
(
| |
+
(
|
\ .
(


where (),
s
and
r
are the volumetric water
content at any suction , saturated volumetric
water content and residual water content
respectively and a, n and m are the fitting
parameters. The key parameters that are relevant
for SWCC are:
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Chinumani, C. & Malaya, C.
1. The volumetric water content at saturation,
s
,
describes the water content at which the soil is
completely saturated and typically depicts the
initial state for the evaluation of the drying
path.
2. The air-entry value (AEV),
a
, is the suction at
which air enters the largest pore present in the
soil sample during a drying process [4]. This is
the point where the desaturation process starts.
3. Residual water content (
r
) is the minimum
water content below which there is no
appreciable change in . Suction corresponding
to
r
is called residual soil suction,
r
[5].

RETC
RETC [6] is a computer code for analyzing the
soil-water characteristic of unsaturated soils. The
program uses VG SWCC equation to represent the
SWCC. The SWCC estimation is based on the VG
SWCC equation (Eq. 1) and grain size distribution
of soil.

EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS
Ten locally available soil samples were used in this
study. The physical properties of soils are
presented in Table 1. Grain size distribution is
obtained using guidelines provided by Indian
standard (IS: 2720). Hygroscopic water content
(w
h
) was obtained following the methodology
presented in the literature [7].

Determination of Hygroscopic Water Content
[7]
A sufficient amount of the soils was oven dried and
with the help of a wooden rammer, the clumps
were broken up. Fifty grams of each of these soils
was passed through a 980 sieve and spread
uniformly in a tray. Later, the tray with the soil was
placed in a humidity chamber, which maintains a
specified relative humidity, RH. The moisture
content of the sample was determined, following
the methodology presented by ASTM [8], after
different time t (=1, 3, 5, and 7 days) of storage, at
different levels of RH (=45%, 52%, 58%, 78% and
90%) and at a constant temperature of 220.5C.

Estimation of SWCC
Ten numbers of SWCC were estimated using the
data available presented in the Table 1. The
estimated SWCCs are presented in the Fig. 1. The
parameters of VG SWCC equation are estimated
using RETC by inputing the grain size data which
are shown in the Table 2.

Table 1 Physical properties and HW content of
soils used in this study
Sample Sand Silt Clay w
h

(%) (%) (%) (%)
P1 14 65 21
28.28
P2 20 62 18
39.72
P3 9 69 22
50.55
P4 21 46 33
79.43
P5 19 49 32
93.88
P6 7 69 24
83.04
P7 6 68 26 72.21
P8 7 64 29
75.82
P9 8 64 28
68.60
P10 13 61 26
90.26

10
-2
10
-1
10
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4
10
5
10
6
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45

(
%
)
(kPa)
P1
P2
P3
P4
P5
P6
P7
P8
P9
P10


Fig. 1 Estimated SWCC of the soils used in the
study


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A study on hygroscopic water content and residual water content of soil

Table 2 Parameters obtained from estimated
SWCC
Sample AEV
r

r

AEV

kPa kPa % %
P1 62 3700
37.45
0.363
P2 60 3900
37.36
0.38
P3 61 3800
38.23
0.37
P4 50 18000
33.49
3.6
P5 30 20000
28.36
3.12
P6 39 8000
31.47
1.25
P7 30 15000
29.35
1.58
P8 45 7000
33.93
1.18
P9 42 8500
31.98
1.37
P10 29 14000
30.46
1.65

Results and Discussion
The variations of residual water content with
respect to hygroscpic water content are presented
in the Fig. 2. It can be observed from the trend
depicted in the figure that
r
increases with
increase in HW content for the range of HW
content considered in this study.
r
shows almost a
linear relation with the w
h
. The regression
coefficient for the relationship is found to be 0.83.
Due to the lack of such studies in the literature, the
obtained trends could not be compared and
validated.

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
r
vs. w
h

r
=0.28w
h
-0.86
R
2
=0.83

r

(
%
)
w
h
(%)
Fig. 2 Correlation between
r
and w
h

CONCLUSIONS
The study investigates the relationship between the
hygroscopic water content and residual water
content of SWCC for the soils under consideration.
The SWCC parameters have been estimated for ten
numbers of soils using computer code RETC. The
study indicates that HW content is closely related
to the residual water content of soil. It has been
observed that HW content, w
h
shows a good
correlation with residual water content,
r
.
Therefore, it can be said that HW can be used to
calculate the
r
of soil.

REFERENCES
1. Saarenketo, T. (1998), Electrical properties of
water in clay and silty soils, Jl. of Applied
Geophysics, 40, 7388.
2. Fredlund, D.G. and Rahardjo, H. (1993), Soil
Mechanics for Unsaturated Soils, J ohn Wiley
and Sons, Inc., New York.
3. Van Genuchten, M.T. (1980), A closed form
equation for predicting the hydraulic
conductivity of unsaturated soils, Soil Sci. Soc.
Am. Jl., 43, 892-898.
4. Brooks, R.H. and Corey, A.T. (1964),
Hydraulic properties of porous media,
Hydrology paper no. 3, Dept. of Civil
Engineering, Colorado State Univ., Fort
Collins, Colorado.
5. Yang, H., Rahardjo, H. and Fredlund, D.G.
(2004), Factors affecting drying and wetting
soil-water characteristic curves of sandy soils,
Canadian Geotech. Jl., 41(5), 908-920.
6. Van Genuchten, F.J . Leij and Yates, S.R.
(1991), The RETC code for quantifying the
hydraulic functions of unsaturated soils, U. S.
Salinity Laboratory, Agricultural Research
Service, Riverside, California.
7. Paresh H. Shah and D. N. Singh. (2006),
Methodology for determination of hygroscopic
moisture content of soils, Jl. of ASTM
International, 3(2).
8. ASTM D 2216-92 (1994), Laboratory
determination of water _moisture_ content of
soil and Rock, Annual Book of ASTM
Standards, Vol. 04.08, ASTM International,
West Conshohocken, PA, PA, 1994, 177180.
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