  Highly compacted sand-bentonite mixtures are often considered as possible
engineered barriers in deep high-level radioactive waste disposals. In-situ,
the saturation of these barriers from their initially unsaturated state is a
complex hydro-mechanical coupled process in which temperature effects also play
a role. The key parameter of this process is the unsaturated hydraulic
conductivity of the barrier. In this paper, isothermal infiltration experiments
were conducted to determine the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity according to
the instantaneous profile method. To do so, total suction changes were
monitored at different locations along the soil specimen by using resistivity
relative humidity probes. Three constant volume infiltration tests were
conducted showing, unexpectedly, a decrease of the hydraulic conductivity
during infiltration. One test performed under free-swell conditions showed the
opposite and standard trend. These observations were interpreted in terms of
microstructure changes during wetting, both under constant volume and free
swell conditions.
