Effect of dry density, soil texture and time-spatial variable water content on the soil thermal conductivity

Study of the heat transfer process in saturated and unsaturated soils requires, basically, a relationship between thermal conductivity and the characteristics of the soil, such as water content, dry density and texture of the soil. This study intends to produce a generic model that can predict soil thermal conductivity with the help of easily measurable parameters. The proposed model is first calibrated using measured thermal conductivities from literature data. In order to validate the proposed model the predicted thermal conductivity of this proposed model as well as existing ones are compared with the measured thermal conductivity in literature for different soils. Validation of the proposed model was also performed on our experimental results obtained for a compacted Misillac sand and in-situ clay loam soils. The results show an average of 15% improvement in prediction accuracy for the proposed model compared to the existing models, considering all soil textures. Moreover, we perform a model to estimate thermal conductivity over time throughout the profile of soil in the context of seasonal variation of temperature. The proposed model shows an important effect of heterogeneity on the thermal conductivity variations of a double layered soil.