2D AND 3D MORPHOLOGICAL AND TOPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A CLAY SOIL

The ultimate goal of this study is to characterize hydraulic and elect ric properties of clay soils. The two main applications of our work ar e understanding of flows and decontamination of soils by electric fiel ds. Therefore, mathematical morphology concepts are used to describe g eometrical, topological and textural properties of a reconstructed 3D fissure network from serial sectioning. Comparison between bi- and thr ee-dimensional morphologies shows that geometries are similar even tho ugh topologies are different. In fact, percolation threshold is highly under-estimated in 2D. Determination of percolation threshold corresp onding to the notion of critical narrowing is explained.