A boundary integral method for steady flow in unsaturated porous media

Abstract

AbstractThe governing equation for steady flow in a homogeneous, partially saturated, porous medium can be written in a linear form if one adopts a hydraulic conductivity function which varies exponentially with capillary‐pressure head. The resulting linear field equation is a steady Fokker–Planck equation and is well‐suited to numerical solution by the boundary integral equation method (BIEM). The exponential conductivity function is often used in soil physics and is known to be a reasonable approximation over limited ranges of pressure head. A computer code based on the BIEM for obtaining numerical solutions is described and tested. The BIEM is found to exhibit quadratic convergence with element size reduction on smooth solutions and on singular problems, if mesh grading is used. Agreement between results from the BIEM code and a finite element code that solves the fully non‐linear problem is excellent, and is achieved at a substantial advantage in computer processing time. As an illustrative example, the code is applied to determine the distribution of moisture in the vicinity of a tunnel.