Estimativa da porosidade drenável por diferentes metodologias

Abstract

This study had as it´s objective to estimate the drainable porosity through different methodologies. Four methods were utilized: the first one was based upon the water table drawdown in a soil filled tank; the second one based upon the Van Beers empirical equation, the third one through the ABNT recomendation, and the last one based upon the water release curve. Three soils with different granulometric composition were used. In the water table drawdown study a physical model made up of three brick and masonry tanks measuring 1.5 x 2.0 x 1.5 m ( Height, Width and Length) which were situated within the area of the Laboratório de Hidráulica e Irrigação of the Universidade Federal do Ceará –UFC were used. Drainable porosity from this method were obtained from the volume of water drained as a result of lowering the water table from 0 to 0.20 m 0,20 to 0,40 m and 0.40 to 0.6 m. respectively. In the VanBeers method a constant head permeameter was utilized to obtain the saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ko) where the drainable porosity (f) was obtaind by correlation .In the ABNT method a Haines funel apparatus was used to obtain the volumetric water content at a water column height ( equal to the Matric Potential) of 60 cm. Three undisturbed soil cores were takenat 0.10, 0.30 and 0.50 m, and drainable porosity calculated by the difference of this volumetric water content and total porosity. In the water release curve method core samples taken from the same depths of the ABNT method, were saturated and volumetric water content at the tensions ( Matric Potential ) of -1,-3, -5, -10, -15, -20, -30, -40, -50 and – 60 were calculated . Drainable porosity was obtained by ploting the curves representing the depths of 0 to 20 cm, 0 to 40 cm and 0 to 60 cm, and calculating, by numerical integration, the water volume diferences between each successive curves. Using the water table drawdown method as the standard, it was observed that the Van Beers method gave the poorest agreement, where the best correlation were obtaind by the water release curve method.