2D and 3D morphological and topological analysis of a clay soil

Abstract

The ultimate goal of this study is to characterize hydraulic and electric properties of clay soils. The two main applications of our work are understanding of flows and decontamination of soils by electric fields. Therefore, mathematical morphology concepts are used to describe geometrical, topological and textural properties of a reconstructed 3D fissure network from serial sectioning. Comparison between bi- and three-dimensional morphologies shows that geometries are similar even though topologies are different. In fact, percolation threshold is highly under-estimated in 2D. Determination of percolation threshold corresponding to the notion of critical narrowing is explained.