ABSTRACT

A mathematical description of a steady-state, unsaturated flow field in a centrifuge has been described by Nimmo et al. (1987). Numerous authors have presented scaling laws for water flow and solute transport in centrifuge experiments (e.g., Garnier et al. 2000). These scaling relationships allow us to design experiments where we can increase the velocity of water through the sample while maintaining moisture potential and water content essentially unaffected. This increases solute advection reduces the time necessary for vertical flow experiments; for example, a solute transport experiment that might take a year to conduct on the bench top could be completed in a week in a centrifuge operating at 50-gs.