Mesure de la perméabilité des sols en place : un nouvel appareil pour la méthode Muntz, une extension de la méthode Porchet aux sols hétérogènes

The authors make a general survey of the methods of measuring soil permeability in the field, looking at them from the point of view of the hydrologist. In the first part they describe new equipment built by the ORSTOM Centre in Lome, Togo, to apply the Muntz method of vertical infiltration under constant head, equipment using a double cylinder and semi-automatic regulation of the discharge. In the second part, the authors make a mathematical analysis of the Porchet method of horizontal infiltration in a borehole full of water: they show that results may be interpreted even with heterogeneous (multi-layered) soils and that the calculations are simplified using a computer programme. In conclusion they deal with some results of measurements obtained by the two methods, and examine their accuracy and their correlation with the physical and hydrodynamics characteristics of the soils.