Hydraulic conductivity of sediment cubes before and after freezing

To study flow and transport processes in heterogeneous porous media, frozen sediment cubes that were assembled in sandbox experiments may represent a viable procedure. In this investigation, it was important to find out how flow and transport properties would be modified by sediment freezing. In this study, a medium sand, a coarse sand and a fine gravel were investigated to find out to what extent the hydraulic conductivities might change before and after freezing. For this purpose, a cubic Darcy-cell was developed. The results of the study show that it is possible to produce 10 x 10 x 10 cm frozen sediment cubes with the presented apparatus. The study also suggests that freezing and subsequent thawing only caused small changes in hydraulic conductivity of the investigated sediments.