An Unfrozen Water Retention Curve for Capturing Soil Density and Specific Surface Effects

Unfrozen water retention curve (UWRC) defines the relationship between temperature and unfrozen water content in frozen soils. Although many models have been proposed for the UWRC, these existing models cannot predict UWRC well over a wide temperatures range. In this study, a new UWRC model is proposed with explicit considerations of both capillarity and adsorption. In this model, capillarity is considered dominating when the freezing of soil pore water at higher temperatures (above −2 °C), whereas the effects of adsorption pronounce at temperatures below −2 °C. Moreover, effects of void ratio on the freezing of capillary water are incorporated. The proposed model was applied to predict UWRCs of silt and clay at different initial void ratios over a wide temperature range (from −50 to 0 °C). Predicted results by this new model are compared with predictions by three well-known existing models. The new model can capture the density effects on UWRC. Moreover, the new model can predict better UWRC over a wide temperature range since it explicitly considers both effects of capillarity and adsorption.