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Fig. 2. Various configurations of air and water partitioning into the two pore systems, inter and intra primary peds, related to the shrinkage phases of a standard Shrinkage Curve. The polygon lines (1), (2), ..., represent the assumed swelling path steps of a bed of packed soil aggregates which is smoothly immersed in the water under conditions described in the article. The various water pools, wre, wbs, wst, wip, are represented with their domain of variation. The linear and curvilinear shrinkage phases are delimited by the transition points (A, B, C, D, E, and F). Points N', M', and L' are the intersection points of the tangents at those linear phases of the SC.
