New Approaches to the Propagation of Nonlinear Transients in Porous Media

Abstract

Many problems in regional groundwater flow require the characterization and forecasting of variables, such as hydraulic heads, hydraulic gradients, and pore velocities. These variables describe hydraulic transients propagating in an aquifer, such as a river flood wave induced through an adjacent aquifer. The characterization of aquifer variables is usually accomplished via the solution of a transient differential equation subject to time-dependent boundary conditions. Modeling nonlinear wave propagation in porous media is traditionally approached via numerical solutions of governing differential equations. Temporal or spatial numerical discretization schemes permit a simplification of the equations. However, they may generate instability, and require a numerical linearization of true nonlinear problems. Traditional analytical solutions are continuous in space and time, and render a more stable solution, but they are usually applicable to linear problems and require regular domain shapes. The method of decomposition of Adomian is an approximate analytical series to solve linear or nonlinear differential equations. It has the advantages of both analytical and numerical procedures. An important limitation is that a decomposition expansion in a given coordinate explicitly uses the boundary conditions in such axis only, but not necessarily those on the others. In this article we present improvements of the method consisting of a combination of a partial decomposition expansion in each coordinate in conjunction with successive approximation that permits the consideration of boundary conditions imposed on all of the axes of a transient multidimensional problem; transient modeling of irregularly-shaped aquifer domains; and nonlinear transient analysis of groundwater flow equations. The method yields simple solutions of dependent variables that are continuous in space and time, which easily permit the derivation of heads, gradients, seepage velocities and fluxes, thus minimizing instability. It could be valuable in preliminary analysis prior to more elaborate numerical analysis. Verification was done by comparing decomposition solutions with exact analytical solutions when available, and with controlled experiments, with reasonable agreement. The effect of linearization of mildly nonlinear saturated groundwater equations is to underestimate the magnitude of the hydraulic heads in some portions of the aquifer. In some problems, such as unsaturated infiltration, linearization yields incorrect results.