Simulation of anisotropic diffusion by means of a diffusion velocity method

Abstract

An alternative method to the Particle Strength Exchange method for solving the advection–diffusion equation in the general case of a non-isotropic and non-uniform diffusion is proposed. This method is an extension of the diffusion velocity method. It is shown that this extension is quite straightforward due to the explicit use of the diffusion flux in the expression of the diffusion velocity. This approach is used to simulate pollutant transport in groundwater and the results are compared to those of the PSE method presented in an earlier study by Zimmermann et al.