Measurement of soil conductivity by automated disc tension infiltrometer

Disc tension infiltrometer has been an important method for measuring the soil hydraulic parameters, and the application of auto mechanism can improve the precision meanwhile. The automation of disc tension infiltrometer was developed. Pressure transducer was used to record the chenges of water level. The automation of disc tension infiltrometer was proved to be credible through indoor experiments and was applied to measure soil hydraulic parameters. Results show that pressure difference in the reservoir measured by auto mechanism is replaced by the change of water level in the reservoir to observe the experimental data. The method is feasible. Compared with the result measured by reading manually, the accuracy of automated disc tension infiltrometer reaches the test requirement. The time scale of determining the sorptivity can be set to 30 second to 4 minutes for the experimental soil.