Unsaturated permeability and retention curve determination from in-flight weight measurements in a bench-scale centrifuge

Centrifuges have been used in many ways to determine permeabilities, as they can significantly shorten testing times in low-permeable soils. Typically equilibrium profiles are used, or inflow-outflow measurements, or direct measurements from inside the sample, like from tensiometers or radioactive decay. Recently weight measurements of the sample outside the centrifuge were used effectively in an adapted setup. We present the results of the possibilities offered by doing transient weight measurements of a soil-sample during rotation in the centrifuge. We present the set-up of such an experiment and how the unsaturated permeability and water retention curve can be recovered from it. This eliminates the overhead of doing measurements inside the sample