%0 Journal Article
%A CHANG Zhou
%A YAN Chang-gen
%A AN Ning
%A LAN Heng-xing
%A SHI Yu-ling
%A BAO Han
%A XU Jiang-bo
%T Permeability and Soil-Water Characteristic Curve of Undisturbed Loess under Wetting-drying Cycles
%D 2024
%R 10.11988/ckyyb.20220826
%J Journal of Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute
%P 143-150
%V 41
%N 1
%X To assess the impact of wetting-drying cycles on the hydraulic properties of undisturbed loess, we performed saturated permeability tests and soil-water characteristic tests on Q<sub>3</sub> loess from Gansu Province under four different wetting-drying cycle paths. The aim is to examine the changes in permeability and soil-water characteristic curves (SWCC) with the number of cycles, cycle amplitude, and lower bound water content. Results revealed that the deterioration of saturated permeability coefficients can be modeled using a hyperbolic function with respect to wetting-drying cycles. After six cycles, the deterioration tends to stabilize. As cycle amplitude increases, the deterioration of saturated permeability coefficients exhibits a linear increase, while a linear decrease with the rise in lower bound water content. The SWCC of loess can be represented by the V-G model; parameters <i>θ</i><sub>s</sub>, <i>α</i>, and <i>n</i> remain relatively unaffected, whereas the parameter <i>θ</i><sub>r</sub> declines exponentially with an increase in the number of cycles. Deterioration models for saturated permeability coefficients and SWCC models considering the above three parameters of wetting-drying cycles are established, enabling the prediction of unsaturated permeability coefficients of loess.
%U http://ckyyb.crsri.cn/EN/10.11988/ckyyb.20220826