ABSTRACT
Solution of any engineering problem in unsaturated soils requires an accurate assessment of the suction distribution within the domain of interest. The suction distribution is a consequence of moisture migration, which in turn is controlled by the hydraulic properties of the soil. Thus, an accurate assessment of these nonlinear properties is a prerequisite for the solution of any unsaturated soil problem. A simple experimental procedure for testing the hydraulic properties of soils is described in the paper. The collected data in the experiment are then used in the analysis as the basis for determining the suction - saturation and saturation - relative permeability functions in an inverse problem solution approach. The analysis procedure accounts for the variation of the degree of saturation within the sample. Both, the drying and wetting branches, as well as the hysteretic loops, can be investigated in the experiment within a reasonable amount of time.
