A device for studying simultaneous heat and moisture movement through soils

Abstract

Studies on the simultaneous movement of heat and moisture in soils gain a significant importance in many engineering applications. This paper presents usefulness of a simple device (i.e., a thermal probe) that can be employed to investigate the simultaneous movement of heat and moisture in kaolin. The device, which has fabricated in-house, is simple to use, handy and less expensive. It imposes a line heat source thermal flux into the soil mass that creates a thermal gradient and as a result, moisture movement occurs from higher to lower temperature regions. It has been observed that the device is very efficient and quite useful in studies related to simultaneous movement of heat and moisture in soils. Present study, further, also demonstrates the distinct advantage of the electrical properties to measure the moisture content of a fine-grained soil, in a nondestructive and noninvasive way. � 2013 Taylor & Francis Group.