FIELD INSTRUMENTATION FOR REAL-TIME MEASUREMENT OF SOIL-WATER CHARACTERISTIC CURVE
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Date
2022-02-11
Authors
Hamdany, Abdul Halim
Shen, Yuanjie
Satyanaga, Alfrendo
Rahardjo, Harianto
Lee, Tsen-Tieng Daryl
Nong, Xuefeng
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Soil and Water Conservation Research
Abstract
Suction measurement has a vital role in unsaturated soil analysis. However, measuring soil suction remains
a challenging task due to a number of issues such as the limited range of suction measurement,
cavitation, or long equilibrium time. It is even more challenging when the suction measurement is to be
carried on the field. Hence, the development of a new suction measurement device which is able to
measure high suction range for a long duration without tedious maintenance and yet portable enough for
site measurement is required. In this study, a new sensor which is referred to as NTU Osmotic Tensiometer
was developed along with the method to correct for decay and temperature. The NTU osmotic
tensiometer is based on polymer swelling capacity in order to measure in-situ soil suction in real time for
a very long duration. It requires minimum maintenance as the polymer-based sensor is not affected by
the cavitation phenomenon. However, correction for decay and temperature is of paramount importance
and therefore explained in this paper. Verification of the NTU osmotic tensiometer was carried out by
comparing the field measurement results from the NTU osmotic tensiometer and the small tip tensiometer.
The performance of the NTU osmotic tensiometer was found to be comparable with that of the
small tip tensiometer, but the NTU osmotic tensiometer is able to measure more than 100 kPa soil
suction. Therefore, it is possible to obtain the field soil-water characteristic curve by combining the
measured in-situ soil suction from the NTU osmotic tensiometer with the measured in-situ water content
from the moisture sensor as illustrated in the paper.
Description
Keywords
Type of access: Open Access, Suction measurement, Tensiometer, Moisture sensor, SWCC, Field measurement
Citation
Hamdany, A. H., Shen, Y., Satyanaga, A., Rahardjo, H., Lee, T. T. D., & Nong, X. (2022). Field instrumentation for real-time measurement of soil-water characteristic curve. International Soil and Water Conservation Research, 10(4), 586–596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2022.01.007