Mobilizing particles in a saturated zone during air sparging.

The mobilization of soil particles changes the porosity of saturated zone during air sparging. Soil porosity is shown to be correlated with soil electrical resistivity. This study performs porosity-resistivity tests to establish the relationship between porosity and resistivity of quartz sand. Experiments, involving a large sandbox to simulate the saturated zone, are then performed to compare the resistivity of compacted sand before air injection with that after air injection. The relevant data enable the mobilization of quartz sand particles to be quantified. Results of the experiments indicate the mobilization of sand particles and an increase in porosity directly proportional to the rate at which air is injected. Besides, a layer of fine-grained particles covered the compacted sand at the upper boundary of sandbox after each air injection experiment. This is direct evidence that finer particles were transported upward during air sparging. Two methods were applied to verify the results of this study. The first verification method indicated that changes in porosity increased directly proportional to the air injection rate, which is consistent with shear theory. The other validation method indicated that the mass of sand in the tank did not change after air sparging, which indicates that the resistivity-porosity method is unbiased.