Thermal conductivity of soft Bangkok clay

In relation to an investigation into thermal ground improvement using prefabricated vertical drains, thermal conductivity of soft Bangkok clay specimens was measured, at different porosities and temperature levels, using a simple nondestructive steady state test method. In addition, a simple model to simulate the thermal conductivity of saturated fine-grained soils behaviour at different porosities has been introduced. It is formulated in terms of thermal conductivity and volume fraction of each soil phases (solid and water), and a morphological parameter that determine the share of both extreme heat flow models (series/parallel). The proposed model has been validated against thermal conductivity results reported in literature and results obtained from the present investigation. Reasonable agreement has been obtained between the predicted and the measured thermal conductivity values. Copyright ASCE 2008.