A 2D contaminant transport model for unsaturated soils

Abstract

This paper presents a numerical model of two-dimensional (2D) contaminant transport through unsaturated porous media using a mesh-free method, called the radial point interpolation method (RPIM), with polynomial reproduction. A 2D form of the advection– dispersion equation, involving a reactive contaminant with linear first-order degradation, is considered in the analysis. In the RPIM, the Galerkin weak form is used to establish the system equation using 2D mesh-free shape functions constructed using thin plate spline radial-basis functions. A Matlab code is developed to obtain the numerical solution. Experimental results are used to validate the proposed RPIM. The applicability and performance of the RPIM are studied using three numerical examples. The results of the RPIM are compared with those obtained from the finite-element method. The RPIM has generated results with no oscillations, and which are insensitive to Péclet constraints.