JP Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

© 2018 Pushpa Publishing House, Allahabad, India

http://www.pphmj.com
http://dx.doi.org/10.17654/HM015030597
Volume 15, Number 3, 2018, Pages 597-608 ISSN: 0973-5763

CHARACTERISTICS OF WATER FLOW

IN HETEROGENEOUS SOILS

Imam Solekhudin, Dwi Purnama, Nurul Hindun Malysa and Sumardi

Department of Mathematics
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada
Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Abstract

In this work, a water flow analysis in heterogeneous soils is

presented. Water flows from periodic trapezoidal channels into the
heterogeneous soils. The heterogeneous soils consist of two layers,
namely, Layer 1 and Layer 2. The flow follows Darcy’s law, which is
then developed into Richards equation by Lorenzo A. Richards in
1931. To do an analysis of the water flow, Richards equation needs to
be solved, by transforming the equation into a modified Helmholtz
equation and then solved numerically. The numerical method used in
this paper is a dual reciprocity method (DRM). Solutions are presented
in terms of suction potential. A comparison of the values of suction
potential in the heterogeneous soils and corresponding homogeneous
soils is presented and discussed.

1. Introduction

Research about flow in porous medium has been done by a number of

researchers. Some of such researchers are Assad et al., Solekhudin, and
Received: April 30, 2018; Revised: May 30, 2018; Accepted: June 20, 2018
2010 Mathematics Subject Classification: 76M15.
Keywords and phrases: dual reciprocity method, water flow, modified Helmholtz equation.
598 I. Solekhudin, D. Purnama, N. H. Malysa and Sumardi
Clements and Lobo. Assad et al. [2] studied osmotic flow with cavitation in
porous media. Water flow from periodic channels in homogeneous soils has
been considered by Solekhudin [9, 10]. Clements and Lobo examined water
flow from single channel in a homogeneous soil [5]. In the studies conducted
by Solekhudin, and Clements and Lobo, water flow problems are in
homogeneous soils.

This work is a continuation of the study in [5, 9, 10]. We consider

problems involving steady infiltration from periodic trapezoidal channels in
two-layered soil. In order to solve the problems, the governing equation of
the problems, which is a Richards equation, is transformed into a modified
Helmholtz equation using a set of transformations. The modified Helmholtz
equation is then solved numerically using a DRM. Numerical solutions
obtained are then used to compute numerical values of suction potential. A
comparison of values of suction potentials in the two-layered soil is
compared to those in the corresponding homogeneous soils.

2. Problem Formulation

We consider two-layered soils consisting of pima clay loam (PCL) and

touchet silt loam (TSL). On the surface of the soil, periodic trapezoidal
channels are constructed. Every channel has a surface area of 100cm2 for
every cm length of the channels. The distance between two consecutive
centres of channels is 200cm. It is assumed that there are a large number of
channels. It is also assumed that the channels are sufficiently long. The
channels are completely filled with water and are kept filled throughout.

In order to solve the problem, a Cartesian coordinate system OXY Z, with

O at the centre of a channel, OX perpendicular to the channels and OZ
positively downward, is considered. It is assumed that geometry of the
channels does not vary in the OY direction. An illustration of the description
is shown in Figure 1. From the description of the geometry of the channels,
it can be deduced that the geometry is symmetrical about planes X 
 100kcm, k  0, 1, 2,  .
 Characteristics of Water Flow in Heterogeneous Soils 599

Figure 1. Geometry of periodic trapezoidal channels.

Since the problem is symmetrical about X  100kcm, k  0, 1, 2,  ,

it is sufficient to consider a semi-infinite region defined by 0  X  100cm
and Z  0. This region is denoted by R bounded by C  C1  C2  C3 
C4 as shown in Figure 2. It is assumed that fluxes across C1 and C2 are v0
and 0, respectively. The fluxes over X  0 and X  100cm are 0, as the
problem is symmetrical about them. The values of two derivatives,  X

and  Z , are  X  0 and  Z  0 as X 2  Z 2  , where

 is the matric flux potential (MFP) [3]. Given this situation, we wish to
determine values of suction potential in the two-layered soil. In addition,
comparisons between the values of suction potential in the two-layered soil
and those in the corresponding homogeneous soils are made.

Figure 2. Geometry of periodic trapezoidal channels.

600 I. Solekhudin, D. Purnama, N. H. Malysa and Sumardi
3. Basic Equations

In the study of problems involving steady water flow in a homogeneous

porous medium, the governing equation of the problems is a Richards
equation, which is given by

        K
K  K   0, (1)
X  X  Z  Z  Z

where K is the hydraulic conductivity and  is the suction potential.

Using the Kirchhoff transformation


   K t  dt , (2)

where  is the matric flux potential (MFP), and an exponential relationship

between K and ,

K  K s e  , (3)

where K s is the saturated hydraulic conductivity and  is a constant soil

parameter corresponding to the roughness of the soil, equation (1) may be
written as

 2  2 
  . (4)
X 2
Z 2 Z

In the present study, value of  in Layer 1 differs from that in Layer 2.

Let 1 and 2 be the values of  in Layer 1 and Layer 2, respectively.
Hence, we may not use equation (4) to solve the problem described. To
overcome this issue, we use the method used in [6, 7, 11], as follows. We
define

1  2
  .
2
 Characteristics of Water Flow in Heterogeneous Soils 601

Replacing  with  , equation (4) may be written as

 2  2 
   . (5)
X 2
Z 2 Z

The horizontal and vertical components of the flux are given in terms of the
MFP by
 
U  ; V    , (6)
X Z

respectively. The flux normal to the surface with outward pointing normal
n  n1, n2  is given by
F  Un1  Vn2 . (7)

Now, substituting the dimensionless variables

   2
x X; z Z;  ; u U;
2 2 v0 L v0 L

2 2
v 
V; f  F (8)
v0 L v0 L

into equation (5) yields

 2  2 
 2  0, (9)
x 2
z 2 z

and the dimensionless flux is

  
f  n   2  n . (10)
x 1  z  2

Applying transformation

  e z , (11)

into equation (9) yields

 2  2
    0, (12)
x 2 z 2
602 I. Solekhudin, D. Purnama, N. H. Malysa and Sumardi
and


f  e z   n2  , (13)
 n 

where  n   x  n1   z  n2 .

Boundary conditions described in the preceding section are written in

terms of  n as follows:

 2  z
 e  n2 on the surface of the channel, (14)
n  L


   on the surface of soil outside the channel, (15)
n

 0, x  0 and z  0, (16)
n


 0, x  b and z  0, (17)
n


 , 0  x  b and z  . (18)
n

Equation (12) is a modified Helmholtz equation. This equation may

be solved numerically using a DRM. Thus, in this paper, equation (12)
subjected to boundary conditions (14)-(18) is solved numerically using a
DRM. Details of the DRM may be obtained in [8].

4. Results and Discussion

In this section, some of results of implementation of the DRM to solve

problems involving steady infiltration in two-layered soils are presented. The
first layer or Layer 1 has a depth of 100cm. The two-layered soils considered
in this study consist of pima clay loam (PCL) and touchet silt loam (TSL).
We observe two cases of two-layered soils. The first case is PCL-TSL,
which means that Layer 1 is PCL, and Layer 2 is TSL. The other case is
TSL-PCL. The values of  and K s of PCL and TSL are shown in Table 1.
 Characteristics of Water Flow in Heterogeneous Soils 603
Table 1. Parameter values for the soils
Soil  Ks

Pima clay loam 0.014cm 1 9.9cm/day

Touchet silt loam 0.0156 cm 1 41.99cm/day

The values in Table 1 are reported by Amoozegar-Fard et al. [1] and

Bresler [4]. From the values shown in Table 1, value of  is 0.0148cm 1.
We set the width and the depth of the channels are 200 cm and 150 2cm,
respectively.

The DRM is employed to obtain numerical results of . Implementation

of the method requires discretization of the boundary by choosing a number
of interior collocation points. The boundary is discretized into 393 elements,
and 400 interior collocation points are chosen. Employing the DRM, values
of  may be obtained. Using the values of  obtained, values of suction
potential, , may be computed. The formula to compute  in a soil with soil
parameter  is as in [9]:
1  v0Le z 
.
 ln (19)
  K s 

To compute the value of , the value v0 of flow at the surface of
channel is needed. Following Solekhudin [9, 10], the value of v0 is 0.75
K s . Hence, for the case PCL-TSL, the value of v0 is 0.75 times the value of
K s of PCL. Thus, value of  is computed using formula:

 1  0.751Le z 
  ln 
,
 in Layer 1,
 1  
 (20)
 1  0.75 K1 2 Le z 
  ln K 2
,
 in Layer 2,
 2  
where i and Ki are, respectively, the values of  and K s in Layer i. For
the case TSL-PCL, equation (20) may not be applied, as v0 on the surface of
TSL exceeds maximum flow on the surface of PCL. Hence, for this case, to
604 I. Solekhudin, D. Purnama, N. H. Malysa and Sumardi
compute  in Layer 2, the value of v0 is chosen to be the maximum flow on
the surface of Layer 2. Hence, formula to compute  for this case is

1  0.75i Le z 
,
 ln (21)
i   


in Layer i, i  1, 2. Some of the results obtained using the DRM are

presented in Table 2 and Figure 3.

Table 2. Values of dimensionless MFP, , at selected points

Dimensionless MFP
Point
Two-layered soil PCL TSL
(20cm, 35cm) 2.61795602 2.74107330 2.50686419
(20cm, 95cm) 2.22973378 2.34938541 2.12218196
(20cm, 110cm) 2.19695511 2.31675523 2.08926519
(20cm, 170cm) 2.14173190 2.26227535 2.03323154
(80cm, 35cm) 1.67815110 1.79754787 1.57102063
(80cm, 95cm) 2.02043410 2.14307469 1.90997177
(80cm, 110cm) 2.05282375 2.17533355 1.94246133
(80cm, 170cm) 2.10926343 2.23101759 1.99958274

Table 2 shows numerical values of dimensionless MFP, , at selected

locations in the soils. The first point to note is that at any location, higher
value of  results in smaller value of . These results are expected as the
analytic solution of corresponding problem from periodic at channels as
reported by Batu [3] is


 nknn sin l nld  cos lnxd  ,
I
 2 (22)
2l  d 
n 1

where

  n  2    n  2  L
I n  exp  z 1  1     , kn  l 1  1    , l  ,
  l  d    l  d   2
 

D X Z
d  , x and z  .
2 2 2
 Characteristics of Water Flow in Heterogeneous Soils 605
Here L and D are half of the channel’s width and half of the width of
soil surface between two consecutive channels, respectively. Thus, at any
location, the value of  in PCL is higher than that in other two soil types. It
can be seen that at X  20cm, values of  decrease as Z goes deeper. The
difference of  at Z  35cm and Z  95cm is about 0.3882, whereas the
difference of  at Z  110cm and Z  170cm is about 0.0552. These
indicate that the rate of decrease in  at shallow level is higher than that
at deeper level. At X  80cm, values of  increase as Z increases. At this
value of X, rise in  decreases as soils go deeper.

Figure 3 shows graphs of  at selected values of X for 0  Z  200cm.

Specifically, Figure 3(a) shows  in PCL. Values of  in TSL are shown in
Figure 3(b). For two-layered soil, values of  in PCL-TSL and TSL-PCL are
shown in Figure 3(c) and Figure 3(d), respectively. For any type of soils, it
can be seen that at any value of Z, value of  at X  20cm is the highest.
On the other hand, value of  at X  80cm is the lowest. Suction
potentials, , at X  40cm are higher than those at X  60cm. These
results indicate that  is getting lower as the distance is further away from
the channels.

Values of  in TSL are higher than those in PCL. For instance, at (20cm,
50cm),  in PCL is about –60cm. This value is lower than the value of  in
TSL at the same location, which is about –50cm. This means that a more
porous medium results in higher suction potential than less porous mediums.
606 I. Solekhudin, D. Purnama, N. H. Malysa and Sumardi

Figure 3. Values of  (cm) along Z-axes (cm) at selected values of X.

In two-layered soils, it can be seen that there are jumps in values of 

at Z  100cm. This is due to the fact that the soil type at Z  100cm differs
from that at Z  100 cm. In Figure 3(c), it can be observed that there are
significant jumps in the values of  in PCL-TSL, from about 95cm  
 70cm to 155cm    145cm. This result is a consequence of water
flux on the surface of the channels or v0 , which is about 7.425cm/day. This
value is relatively small compared to water flux for TSL to achieve values of
 in Figure 3(b), which is about 31.4925cm/day. For TSL-PCL, there are
also jumps in values of  at Z  100cm (see Figure 3(d)). The values of
 jump from about 75cm    65cm to 80cm    70cm. These
results are due to changes in porosity, form more porous to less porous
medium.
 Characteristics of Water Flow in Heterogeneous Soils 607
It can also be seen that for PCL-TSL, values of  at location near the
surface of soil are slightly lower than those in PCL. These results are
expected, as at any location  in PCL is greater than that in two-layered
soils (see Table 2). Consequently, values of  in PCL are also greater than
those in PCL-TSL, as the values of  for both soils are computed using
equation (20) for Layer 1. On the other hand, values of  at Z  100cm for
TSL-PCL are a bit higher than those in TSL, as values of  in TSL-PCL are
greater than those in TSL.

5. Concluding Remark

Steady infiltration problems have been solved by transforming the

governing equation and using a DRM to solve the resulting partial
differential equation. The DRM is employed to obtain numerical values of
dimensionless MFP and suction potential.

The results obtained illustrate the influence of soil type to the suction
potential. More porous medium results in higher suction potential than less
porous medium. Moreover, jumps in the values of suction potential occur at
locations where soil type changes. Drastic jumps occur when Layer 1 is less
porous than Layer 2.

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by Research Grant PBK contract number

1707/UN1/DITLIT/DIT-LIT/LT/2018 provided by the Directorate General
of the Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia.

The authors thank the anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions
and comments.
608 I. Solekhudin, D. Purnama, N. H. Malysa and Sumardi
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Imam Solekhudin: imams@ugm.ac.id