学术报告预告：What Is the Range of Soil Water Density?

    Lecture #1: What Is the Range of Soil Water Density? Critical Reviews With a Unified Model

Abstract. Critical reviews are provided on the experimental and theoretical methodologies on soil water density to identify their limitations, flaws, and uncertainties. Some recent findings on intermolecular forces, interfacial interactions, and soil water retention mechanisms are synthesized to clarify molecular-scale physicochemical mechanisms governing the soil water density. A unified model to quantify soil water density variation is presented.

Lecture #2: Soil Sorptive Potential: Root of Matric Suction

Abstract. Soil water interaction involves two physical mechanisms: capillarity and adsorption. As such, matric potential or the negative of matric suction should reflect both mechanisms.  However, the common definition of matric potential, being the pressure difference between pore water and pore air pressure, overlooks the adsorption.  The adsorption can be captured in a new concept called soil sorptive potential. A general definition of matric potential or matric suction is postulated. This new definition of matric suction provides thermodynamic ways to bridge the gap between pore water pressure and soil sorptive potential, and to quantify soil freezing curve, soil water density, and soil water cavitation.

Biographical Sketch

Ning Lu is professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and the director of the joint CSM/US Geological Survey Geotechnical Research Laboratory in Golden, CO. He is a recipient of the ASCE 2007 Norman Medal, of the ASCE 2010 Croes Medal, of the ASCE 2017 Ralph B. Peck Award, and of the ASCE 2017 Maurice Biot Medal, as well as a fellow of ASCE, Engineering Mechanics Institute, and Geological Society of America. His primary research interests are flow and stress laws in multiphase porous media, rainfall-induced instability of natural and engineered slopes, geologic hazards, energy storage in porous media, and subsurface nuclear waste isolation. He is the senior author of the widely used textbook Unsaturated Soil Mechanics (John Wiley and Sons, 2004) and the textbook Hillslope Hydrology and Stability (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Both books are translated into Chinese and published by The Chinese Higher Education Press.

卢宁（Ning Lu），现任美国科罗拉多矿业大学土木与环境工程系终身正教授，美国国家地质调查局—科罗拉多矿业大学岩土工程联合实验室主任。Ning Lu教授是美国土木工程师学会最高奖Normal Medal(2007)、J. James Croes Medal(2010)、Ralph B. Peck Award(2017)、 Maurice Biot Medal(2017)的获得者；是美国土木工程师学会、美国地质学会会士。Ning Lu教授研究兴趣为非饱和土的力学与水力学行为、雨致边坡失稳、地质灾害、地热开发与储存、核废料地下处置。Ning Lu教授撰写的著作《非饱和土力学》和《斜坡水文与稳定》在国际上获得广泛好评，其中译本均在高等教育出版社出版。