Degree of saturation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Water content. (Discuss) |
Degree of saturation is a physical property of soil indicating a degree of saturation of pores in a soil. It is defined as a ratio of total volume of water (liquid phase content) and total volume of voids (liquid and gas phase):
S = Vw / Vv
Value of S ranges from 0 (soil skeleton is dry) to 1 (soil skeleton is saturated. Of course, in reality S never reaches 0 or 1 - these are idealisations for engineering use. Most commonly all three phases in soil occur.
Saturation is an essential property of soils. E.g. the slopes stability is affected by the surface water and many landslides are not only due to erosion but also loss in suction.
