it is clear that by entrapping the air in the voids present in the soil, the permeability is greatly reduced, thus reducing the degree of saturation. can any one explain the phenomenon?
Where Si is phase saturation, Vi is the volume of phase (i) and Vv is the volume of voids in the material. The sum of the saturations of all phases present equals one.
Sair + Swater + SNAPLS =1.
In the unsaturated zone with air, water, and NAPL, the corresponding saturations total one: Sair + Swater + SNAPLS =1.
Accordingly, and for example; Sair =0.19 , Swater= 0.80, SNAPLS = 0.01, and when Sair becomes 0.39, the Swater is already reduced from 0.80 to 0.60 and so, SNAPLS = 0.01.