Effective thermal conductivity of three-phase soils, Paper n.86304

The aim of the present paper is to determine the effective thermal conductivity of three-phase soils, made of a quasi-spherical solid grain, and surrounded by two phase, which can be water and air or water and ice. The effective thermal conductivity is obtained theoretically by integrating the conduction equation under the thermal distribution of parallel heat fluxes in steady-state. The effective thermal conductivity is evaluated at a given degree of porosity (ratio between the void volume and the total one) and different degrees of saturation (ratio between the water volume and the void one) from dryness up to saturation. Comparisons between experimental data and theoretical predictions confirm that the present model can predict the effective thermal conductivity with a fairly good agreement without using any empirical constant