Exponential functions for modelling hysteresis of soil-water characteristic curves

Abstract

Soil - water characteristic curve (SWCC) is an important property of unsaturated soils that can be used to estimate various parameters to describe unsaturated soil behavior. SWCC is reported to be hysteretic because the water content at a given suction in the wetting process is less than that in the drying process. In order to simulate the hysteretic characteristics of SWCC, many models have been proposed by different researchers. However, majority of the existing models are complex and their parameters are not related to the physical significances of SWCC variables. In this study, the new equations are developed to model drying and wetting SWCC. In addition, some indexes are proposed to estimate the wetting SWCC from drying SWCC. The new equations for SWCCs were evaluated with the laboratory data from published literatures. The results showed that the proposed equations performed well in modelling drying and wetting SWCC. The new equation has less parameters than the existing published equation.