Conductivity and Transit Time Estimates of a Soil Liner

Krapac, I. G.; Cartwright, K.; Panno, S. V.; Hensel, B. R.; Rehfeldt, K. H.; Herzog, B. L.; ,

Conductivity and Transit Time Estimates of a Soil Liner

by I. G. Krapac, Illinois State Geological Survey, United States,
K. Cartwright, Illinois State Geological Survey, United States,
S. V. Panno, Illinois State Geological Survey, United States,
B. R. Hensel, Illinois State Geological Survey, United States,
K. H. Rehfeldt, Illinois State Geological Survey, United States,
B. L. Herzog, Illinois State Geological Survey, United States,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Optimizing the Resources for Water Management

Abstract:

A field-scale soil linear was built to assess the feasibilty of constructing a liner to meet the saturated hydraulic conductivity requirement of the U.S. EPA (i.e., less than 1 ? 10^-7 cm/s), and to determine the breakthrough and transit times of water and tracers through the liner. The liner, 8 ? 15 ? 0.9 m, was constructed in 15-cm compacted lifts using a 20,037-kg pad-foot compactor and standard engineering practices. Estimated saturated hydraulic conductivities were 2.4 ? 10^-9 cm/s, based on data from large-ring infiltrometers; 4.0 ? 10^-8 cm/s from small-ring infiltrometers; and 5.0 ? 10^-8 cm/s from a water-balance analysis. These estimates were derived from 1 year of monitoring water infiltration into the linear. Breakthrough of tracers at the base of the liner was estimated to be between 2 and 13 years, depending on the method of calculation and the assumptions used in the calculation.

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