THE NATURE OF THE DRAIN CHANNEL AS A FACTOR IN THE DESIGN OF A LAND‐DRAINAGE SYSTEM

Abstract
Summary: Drainage theory is customarily discussed on the assumption that the drainage channel is uniformly permeable. In practice such channels often consist of short lengths of relatively impermeable pipe separated by gaps. It is shown here that the appropriate modification to the theory in order to embrace such channels is to substitute an equivalent permeable channel of smaller radius.Experiments described here enable one to evaluate the equivalent drain radius, and show that this radius is not solely dependent upon the geometry of the gappy channel but is markedly affected by the ratio of intensity of rainfall to soil hydraulic conductivity. In the examples shown a tenfold increase of rainfall rate causes a hundredfold increase of effective drain radius.

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