ABSTRACT
The paper presents part of a study related to the retention of water by iron ore. The objective of the study is to evaluate the drainage behaviour under unsaturated condition of the iron ore inside the cargo hold of ships. The study involves experimental test and numerical analysis. The test is simple and allows the determination of the permeability function of a homogenous material. The column tests were used to evaluate the parameters adopted for numerical analysis. The simple approach used in this study demonstrated that the unsaturated soil mechanics may be a useful toll for engineering practice.
