Abstract
The current work describes a laboratory method for classifying soils according to their contamination susceptibility by using the permeameter apparatus. This methodology is applied in a laboratory environment by performing several tests on saturated soil samples derived from several sites located in the surrounding area of the city of Patras in Greece: hence, investigating the mechanisms of advection flow and hydrodynamic dispersion. Solute migration through the saturated soil samples is monitored with continuous recordings on solute’s conductivity in the exit of the permeameter apparatus. Test results are presented in the form of contaminant concentration-time graphs and are cross-validated with the use of the CANAL-T software, which is used in 1-D calculations of the solute’s concentration in space and time, for both conservative and non-conservative tracers. The good correlation of the breakthrough curves of solute’s concentration with time, among the constant and falling head laboratory tests and the respective software results, suggests that the permeameter apparatus can be used for the investigation of contaminant transport processes in different soil samples. At the end of this procedure, it becomes efficient to classify all soils according to their contamination susceptibility as unsusceptible, moderately susceptible, and highly susceptible soils, which is a very important aspect in the investigation of soil contamination for scientific purposes and contaminant prevention from human activities.
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The current experimental work conducetd entirely in the laboratory of Engineering Geology, University of Patras, Greece.
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Responsible Editor: Amjad Kallel
This paper was selected from the 3rd Conference of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences (CAJG), Tunisia 2020
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Depountis, N., Pelekis, P. & Sabatakakis, N. Classification of soils’ contamination susceptibility with the use of the permeameter apparatus. Arab J Geosci 14, 1317 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07698-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07698-9