Numerical study of the exchange term in the non-equilibrium water flow

model for double-porosity soils

J. Lewandowska
Laboratoire dtude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement (LTHE), Grenoble, France

A. Szymkiewicz
Institute of Hydroengineering of the Polish Academy of Science, Gdansk, Poland

M. Vauclin
Laboratoire dtude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement (LTHE), Grenoble, France

ABSTRACT: This paper presents an evaluation of the exchange term approximations proposed by Gerke &
van Genuchten (1996) and Zimmerman et al. (1996) (modified by Khne et al. (2004)) for modeling transient
unsaturated flow in double-porosity soils. Numerical simulations of one-dimensional vertical infiltration of water
into initially dry soils were performed for different shapes of inclusions, soil textures and hydraulic conductivity
ratios between the matrix and the inclusions. It is shown that both approximations are able to well reproduce
the results obtained by the detailed double-porosity model of Lewandowska et al. (2004a), especially in terms
of fluxes. However, the Khne et al. (2004) second-order approximation was found to strongly depend on their
parameter p, which does not have any physical meaning.

1 INTRODUCTION double-porosity soil and of its detailed morphology.

A large class of porous formations can be described
as double-porosity media. They are composed of
two porous sub-domains characterized by contrast-
ing hydraulic properties. Typical examples are aggre-
gated soils, fissured or fractured rocks. The transient
unsaturated water flow in such media occurs under
local non-equilibrium conditions. A number of mod-
els describing flow in double-porosity soils can be
found in the literature (Gerke & van Genuchten
1993a, Jarvis 1994, Zimmerman et al. 1996). More
recently, Lewandowska et al. (2004a) developed a non-
equilibrium model using the homogenization theory. It
consists of a single integro-differential equation for the
macroscopic flow, coupled with the local flow equa-
tions for the micro-porosity sub-domain. The model
has two effective parameters (hydraulic conductiv-
ity tensor and capillary capacity) and an exchange
term, all being highly non-linear functions of the water
pressure head. The corresponding numerical solution
of a flow problem in a macroscopically 1D domain
with 3D porous inclusions was implemented into the
code DPOR-1D, Szymkiewicz (2004). In its present
complete form, the model requires the a priori knowl-
edge of the local hydrodynamic properties of the
The model was found to properly simulate the water
infiltration into a vertical column filled with a mixture
of sand and clayey spherical inclusions, arranged in a
periodic way, Lewandowska et al. (2004b). However,
for practical purposes, a reduction of the number of
parameters and of the computational effort is needed.
This can be done by parameterizing the term of the
water transfer between the sub-domains. In this paper
a numerical study of this term is presented. The case
considered herein is a typical problem of infiltration
of water into initially dry medium. The results of
the numerical calculations using the complete double-
porosity model, Lewandowska et al. (2004a), and the
code DPOR-1D are compared with those obtained
by introducing into that model the approximations
of the exchange term proposed by Gerke and van
Genuchten (1996) and Zimmerman et al. (1996),
recently modified by Khne et al. (2004).
2 DOUBLE-POROSITY MODEL
The one-dimensional flow in unsaturated double-
porosity soil under local non-equilibrium conditions

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
can be described by the following equation
(Lewandowska et al. 2004a):
where h = the macroscopic water pressure head,
h2 = the water pressure head in the inclusions,
C eff (h) = the effective capillary capacity, K eff (h) = the
effective hydraulic conductivity, C2 (h2 ) = the capil-
where w2 = the volumetric fraction of the inclusions
and C2,av = C2 (h2,av ). Equation (4) is a nonlinear ordi-
nary differential equation that requires an initial con-
dition h2,av,0 (x). Usually, equilibrium is assumed at the
beginning of the process, i.e. h0 (x) = h2,av,0 (x). Thus,
instead of solving the complete problem (1)(2)(3),
the problem (1)(4) with an approximation of Q, given
in the sections 3.1 and 3.2, is solved. Such approach
reduces the computation time, since the local flow
equation (3) is not solved. However, the solution is less
accurate. Note that h2,av is different from the volume
lary capacity of the inclusions, 2 = the part of the
periodic Representative Elementary Volume corre-
sponding to the inclusions, t = time and x = the ver-
tical coordinate (oriented positively downwards). The
exchange of water between the matrix and the inclu-
sions in Eq. (1) is represented through the integral
source term:
which expresses the time variations of the average vol-
umetric water content of the inclusions. This term is
calculated from the solution of the local-scale flow
problem in the inclusions at each time step, as follows:
where yi = the local spatial variable associated with
a single inclusion (i = 1, 2, 3) and K2 (h2 ) = the local
hydraulic conductivity of the inclusions. The bound-
ary condition for Eq. (3) is written: h2 = h at the
matrix-inclusion interface. Moreover, the solution of
the problem (1)(3) requires macroscopic boundary
conditions specified in terms of the pressure head hb (t)
or the flux qb (t), and the initial conditions for the
macroscopic and the local pressure heads h0 (x) and
h2,0 (x, y). A detailed description of the model can be
found in Lewandowska et al. (2004a).
3 APPROXIMATIONS OF THE EXCHANGE
TERM
The model (1)(3) can be simplified by using one of
the existing approximations of the water exchange rate
between matrix and inclusions Q. In such formula-
tions at each point of the macroscopic domain x the
locally variable pressure head in the inclusions h2 (y)
is replaced by an average pressure head h2,av , which
is governed by the following equation (Gerke & van
Genuchten 1993a, Zimmerman et al. 1996):
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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
average of h2 (y), usually noted <h2 (y)>.
3.1 First-order approximation
One of the most common formulations is the first-
order expression used by Gerke & van Genuchten
(1993a,b). The water exchange term Q has the fol-
lowing form:
where = a geometry dependent coefficient, a = the
distance from the centre to the surface of an
inclusion, = an empirical scaling coefficient and
Ka = the hydraulic conductivity at the interface
between matrix and inclusions, evaluated as: Ka = 0.5
(K2 (h) + K2 (h2,av )). Gerke & van Genuchten (1996)
showed that depends mainly on the normalized
surface-to-volume ratio of the weakly conductive
inclusions/blocks, . They proposed an empirical
relationship for (). It was shown that the first-
order approximation tends to be inaccurate for early
stages of infiltration from the matrix to the inclusions
(Zimmerman et al. 1996, Gerke & van Genuchten
1993a, b).
3.2 Second-order approximation
Zimmerman et al. (1996) developed the following
second-order formula for Q which is claimed to be
accurate for both early and late stages:
where hinit = the initial water pressure head at equi-
librium. According to Khne et al. (2004), the con-
ductivity at the matrix-inclusion interface is estimated
as: Ka = (K2 (h) + pK2 (h2,av ))/(p + 1), where p is a
weighting coefficient. The value p = 17 has been
proposed by Khne et al. (2004) as a reasonable
approximation for a variety of soil textures.
In the paper the performance of the model with
explicit solution of the local-scale flow equation in
the inclusions, Eqs. (1)(2)(3), is compared with the
simplified version (1)(4), where the source term Q A) sphere B) circle
is calculated by either the first-order, Eq. (5) or the
second-order approximation, Eq. (6). The calculations
were carried out for different shapes of inclusions, soil
textures, and hydraulic conductivity ratios between
matrix and inclusions. Only few illustrative examples l l
are presented in the following.

4 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM 2a 2a

C) cube D) square
4.1 Geometry
The considered problem is the macroscopically one-
dimensional vertical transient infiltration into a soil
layer of the 50 cm. The soil is assumed to be composed
of a continuous matrix with inclusions of constant l l
sizes. Four shapes of inclusions were considered: cir-
cles, spheres, squares and cubes (Fig. 1). For each
inclusion type, one characteristic dimension was kept 2a 2a
constant, a = 0.175 cm. The dimension l was chosen in
such a manner that the volume fraction of the matrix,
Figure 1. Types of the inclusions.
w1 , and the inclusions, w2, were close to 0.5, Table 1.

4.2 Local hydraulic properties Table 1. Dimensions of the inclusions and parameters.
It is assumed that both sub-domains of the double-
l a w1 KE
porosity soil are hydraulically characterized by the van
Genuchten Mualem closed-form equations: Geometry [cm] [cm] [] [] []

Sphere 0.36 0.175 0.52 0.374 21

Cube 0.44 0.175 0.50 0.385 21
Circle 0.44 0.175 0.50 0.323 11
Square 0.5 0.175 0.51 0.328 11

where: = the volumetric water content, R (S ) = the Table 2. Soil hydraulic parameters.
residual (saturated) volumetric water content, KS = the
R S n
saturated hydraulic conductivity, , n and m = empirical
parameters (m = 1 1/n). The capillary capacity is Soil texture [] [] [cm1 ] []
defined as C(h) = d/dh.
The numerical calculations were performed for Sand 0.045 0.430 0.145 2.68
three types of soil texture corresponding to sand, sandy Sandy loam 0.065 0.410 0.075 1.89
loam and silt (Carsel & Parrish 1988). In each case, Silt 0.034 0.460 0.016 1.37
the parameters R , S , , n were assumed the same for
the matrix and the inclusions, which implies identi-
cal retention curves for both sub-domains, Table 2. In
all the cases, KS was arbitrarily fixed at KS1 = 30 cm conductivity are defined as functions of the respective
h1 (sand) for the matrix and KS2 = 0.003 cm h1 parameters of the matrix C1 and K1 : C eff (h) = w1 C1 (h)
for the inclusions. Note that such a choice of the and K eff (h) = KE K1 (h), where w1 = the volumetric
parameters was aimed at considering constant con- fraction occupied by the matrix and KE [] = the
ductivity/diffusivity ratios between the matrix and the geometry dependent coefficient obtained from the
inclusions. solution of the local boundary value problem (see
Lewandowska et al. (2004a)). For each type of inclu-
4.3 Effective parameters of the double-porosity sions KE was calculated using the DPOR-1D code
model
(Szymkiewicz, 2004). The geometry coefficient was
According to Lewandowska et al. (2004a) the effec- chosen following Gerke & van Genuchten (1996). The
tive capillary capacity and the effective hydraulic values of all coefficients are given in Table 1.

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
4.4 Initial and boundary conditions 10 explicit solution
first-order approx.
The assigned initial and boundary conditions corre-
8 second-order approx.
spond to an infiltration into an initially dry soil. At
t = 0 the water pressure head is assumed uniform along

flux [cm h-1]

6
the profile: hinit = 100 cm. At t > 0 a constant pres-
sure head is applied at the surface, hsurf = 2 cm. At

re
textu am
4
the bottom of the profile (z = 50 cm), free drainage

xture

textu
re
y lo
condition is imposed, h/x = 0. 2

silt te

sand

sand
0
4.5 Numerical solution 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
All numerical simulations were performed with the time [h]
DPOR-1D code, which has been initially developed
Figure 2. Time evolution of the outlet flux for different soil
for the macroscopic model (1) (Lewandowska et al. textures with spherical inclusions.
2004a) and subsequently modified by introducing the
approximations (5) and (6). The macroscopic and local
explicit solution
flow equations were solved by the finite difference
method. Uniform spatial discretization was used for first-order approx.
the macroscopic equation, x = 0.5 cm, while the 0
second-order approx.
inclusions were discretized with y = 0.0175 cm. The
time step t varied in the range 1012 h to 0.3 h.
The solution procedure for the simplified model 10
t = 0.5 h
(1)(4) is similar to the one described in Lewandowska
et al. (2004a) for the full model (1)(3). Equations
depth [cm]

20
(1) and (4) are discretized with respect to time using
implicit scheme. The Newton iterative scheme is used
to solve the nonlinear equation resulting from (4) at 30
each time step. In each iteration the values of Q and its t = 1.5 h
derivative dQ/dh, required in the jacobian matrix, are 40
calculated using the value of the macroscopic pressure
head h from the previous iteration. After the iteration
is completed new values of h2,av are calculated from 50
(4)(5) or (4)(6) at each node. Since (4) is a nonlinear 0 0.25 0.5
equation, the value h2,av is found by a bisection proce- water content Q [-]
dure. The process is continued until the required error
tolerance is achieved. Figure 3. Water content profiles in the matrix sub-domain
for sand-textured soil with spherical inclusions.

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 5.2 Influence of the soil texture

5.1 Case of sand with spherical inclusions
The time evolution of the outlet fluxes calculated using
different exchange term formulations is presented in
Fig. 2. It can be seen that both approximations give
results close to the explicit solution. While the first-
order approximation is almost the same as the explicit
solution, the second-order approximation leads to
some deviations (two-step like response). The compar-
ison of the water content profiles, Fig. 3, shows a slight
acceleration and a more diffusive shape of the wetting
front when the second-order approximation is consid-
ered. In Fig. 4 the distribution of the exchange term
with depth is shown at two times. We can observe that a
good agreement is obtained for the first-order approx-
imation while the second-order gives less satisfying
results as compared to the explicit solution.
Figure 2 presents the evolution of the outlet fluxes
for the three soil textures. Note that for each texture
we assumed the same value of the saturated hydraulic
conductivity of the matrix KS1 . Very fair agreement for
both approximations can be seen for all the textures,
the results being excellent in case of silt texture.
This behavior could be explained by the choice
of the weighting parameter p. Although Khne et al.
(2004) recommended p = 17 as an average value,
they also showed that its value depends on the soil
texture. For sandy loam they obtained a calibrated
value of p = 8. It means that for coarser soil textures
the influence of K2 (h2,av ) on the interface conductiv-
ity Ka diminishes. However, no attempts were made
towards better fitting of p. On the other hand, we
obtained a good agreement using a simple formula:
Ka = 0.25 Ka (h) (results not shown here).

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Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
 explicit solution 10 explicit solution
first-order approx. first-order
second-order approx. 8 approx.
0
second-order

flux [cm h-1]

6 approx.
10
t = 0.5 h 4

circle
r
sphe
depth [cm]

20
2

30 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
t = 1.5 h time [h]
40
Figure 5. Time evolution of the outlet flux for sand-textured
50 soil with spherical and circular inclusions.
0 0.25 0.5 0.75
exchange rate Q [h-1] 10 explicit solution
first-order
Figure 4. Exchange rate Q versus depth for sand-textured approx.
8
soil with spherical inclusions. second-order
flux [cm h-1]

approx.
6
5.3 Influence of the shape of the inclusions

re
The calculations were performed for the 2D, Fig. 5, and 4

squa
cube
3D inclusions, Fig. 6. It can be noticed that the first-
order approximation almost perfectly coincides with 2
the explicit solution, while the second order approx-
imation leads to systematic deviations, this trend 0
being slightly accentuated for the two-dimensional 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
inclusions. time [h]

Figure 6. Time evolution of the outlet flux for sand-textured

5.4 Influence of the hydraulic conductivity ratio soil with cubic and squared inclusions.

A third series of calculations was made with the aim

to evaluate the performance of the simplified models explicit solution
for different inclusion/matrix hydraulic conductivity first-order
12
approx.
ratios K2 /K1 . The results are presented here for sand second-order
texture with spherical inclusions. The matrix con- 10
approx.
ductivity was kept constant (KS1 = 30 cm h1 ) while
flux [cm h-1]

8
that of the inclusions varied from KS2 = 3 cm h1 to
3 106 cm h1 , leading to ratios between 101 and 6
K2/K1 = 10-6

K2/K1 = 10-4

106 , respectively.
4
According to the homogenization theory the
model (1)(3) can be used, when K2 /K1 = O(2 ), 2
where = the scale separation parameter. In our
case = l/L = 0.36 cm/50 cm = 102 . Therefore, 0
the model is valid, if the hydraulic conductivity ratio is 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
time [h]
of the order O(104 ). When the conductivities are of
the same order of magnitude (small contrast), the local
Figure 7. Time evolution of the outlet flux for different
equilibrium model (Lewandowska & Laurent 2001), conductivity ratios and sand-textured soil with spherical
was used. inclusions.
Figures 7 and 8 give the time evolution of the outlet
fluxes calculated for different ratios of conductivity.
It can be seen that both approximations diverge from longer time that the breakthrough time. On the other
the explicit solution in case of large contrast of con- hand, for small contrast of conductivity values, a cor-
ductivities O(106 ), Fig. 7. They seem not to be able rect limit passage to the local equilibrium behavior can
to capture the long-tail effect that develops over much be observed, Fig. 8.

369
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
 12 explicit solution
first-order
10 approx.
second-order
flux [cm h-1]
8 approx.
6 gramme ECCO/PNRH and administrated by the
K2/K1 = 10-2
K2/K1 = 10-1
4
2
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
time [h]
Figure 8. Time evolution of the outlet flux for different
conductivity ratios and sand-textured soil with spherical
inclusions.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The numerical simulations of the one-dimensional
infiltration of water into a double-porosity soil con-
firm that both parameterized expressions of the
term of water transfer between the two sub-domains,
namely the first-order approximation of Gerke and
van Genuchten (1996) and the second-order approx-
imation of Zimmerman et al. (1996), modified by
Khne et al. (2004), are capable to fairly reproduce the
behaviour of the double-porosity model, especially in
terms of fluxes. However, the second-order approxi-
mation was found to strongly depend on the parameter
p, which does not have any physical meaning and
therefore is difficult to determine.
The results showed also that instead of the complete
double porosity model (1)(2)(3), the approximation
(1)(4) together with equation (5) or (6) can be used.
In all the examples presented in the paper, we used
the effective properties which were calculated accord-
ing to the asymptotic homogenization method. In our
opinion this is the main reason of previously reported
discrepancy between the oneequation and the two-
equation models, Lewandowska et al. (2004a). The
effective conductivity in the two-equation model is
often assumed to be a linear function of the volumet-
ric fraction of the porous blocks or fractures. It is a
strong assumption, justified only for particular types
of geometry such as slabs parallel to flow direction.
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The study was conducted within the framework of
the project Transferts complexes en milieux poreux
et ressources en eau funded by the French pro-
CNRS-INSU.
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