Abstract: Estimation of soil thermal resistivity plays an important role for various engineering projects. Thermal resistivity of soil is a complex phenomenon that depends upon various parameters such as type of soil, particle size distribution, and compaction characteristics etc. Many researchers and investigators have tried to develop mathematical and theoretical models to estimate soil thermal resistivity. However, these models are not always capable of predicting thermal resistivity of soils. A laboratory thermal probe was fabricated to evaluate thermal resistivity of various soils. However, as natural soil consists of various size fractions ranging from clay to gravel, the laboratory thermal probe cannot be used very efficiently. This necessitated the fabrication of a field thermal probe that works on the principle of transient method and is a magnified version of the laboratory thermal probe. Based on the results obtained efforts have been made to develop generalized relationships for estimating the soil thermal resistivity of dune sand by knowing the dry density, moisture content and percent size fraction of the various particle sizes, and validation of the proposed generalized equations have been done with the results available in the literature.

Keywords: soil, dune sand, thermal resistivity, field thermal probe, transient method.

| DOI: 10.17148/IARJSET.2021.8906