Radial basis function partition of unity method for modelling water flow in porous media

Abstract

Water flow in variably-saturated porous media is modelled by using the highly nonlinear parabolic Richards’ equation. The nonlinearity is due to the hydraulic conductivity and moisture content variables. The latter were estimated by using experimental models, including Gardner, Burdine, Mualem and van Genuchten models. The aim of this work is to develop a new technique based on the radial basis function partition of unity method (RBFPUM) and Gardner model in order to solve Richards’ equation in one and two dimensions. We have used Gardner model to handle the nonlinearity issue and the RBFPUM is used to approximate the solution of the linearized Richards’ equation. Our proposed algorithm is based on testing many configurations of the partitions number and selecting the optimal shape parameter for each case. Then we pick up the optimal configuration (partitions number-shape parameter) that yields the best solution in terms of error and conditioning number. By following this procedure, an optimal solution is ensured for our given problem. As numerical tests, we consider the vertical infiltration of water in soils in order to validate our proposed method.