An Improved Thermal Conductivity Model for Unsaturated Clay

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An Improved Thermal Conductivity Model for Unsaturated Clay

Song, Xinye / Fan, Henghui / Liu, Jiawei / Yang, Xiujuan

The thermal properties of soils vary because of the different textures of soils; thus, it is valuable to conduct research on the development of thermal conductivity models for soils with different textures. Clay samples with different dry densities and increasing incremental water contents were prepared, their thermal conductivities were measured by the transient plane source (TPS) method. The experimental results show that the thermal conductivity of clay increases with increasing water content and dry density. The water content has a stronger influence than the dry density on the thermal conductivity. This paper presents an improved model to predict the thermal conductivity of unsaturated clay. The model considers the different contributions of minerals in the soil and the distribution of water and air in pores. The accuracy of the model is verified by soil thermal conductivity data that was previously measured and collected from ten regions. Compared with the three similar models proposed in the literature, the new model proposed in this paper has a higher degree of correlation to describe the thermal conductivity of clay.