Infiltrometer

An infiltrometer is a device used to measure the rate of water infiltration into soil or other porous media.

The operator records how much water goes into the soil for a given time period.

The purpose is to create a one-dimensional flow of water from the inner ring, as the analysis of data is simplified.

If water is flowing in one-dimension at steady state condition, and a unit gradient is present in the underlying soil, the infiltration rate is approximately equal to the saturated hydraulic conductivity.

The ASTM standard method[2] specifies inner and outer rings of 30 and 60 cm diameters, respectively.