CSS 210 Lecture 6: Soil Pore Space & Porosity (6).txt
10 Feb 2014
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Pore space is the volume or amount of space within a soil that is not occupied by particles of mineral and/or organic matter. Three factors affect pore space: texture structure compaction. If we were to assume soil particles were perfect spheres, the max amount of pore space that a soil could have in an open packing arrangement would be 48% of the total volume. The minimum amount of pore space the soil could have in a close packing arrangement would be 26% Soil particles are not perfect spheres and additional spaces between the structural aggregates increase the pore space resulting in some soils with greater than 48% total pore space. Structure, along iwth texture, influence the bulk density of a soil and play an important role in determining the total amount of pore space. Assume we have a single grained sand that does not contain any structure (structureless) and has about 40% porosity space.
