Multicontinuum homogenization for Richards' equation: the derivation and numerical experiments (Q6116761)

The authors consider Richard's equation \[ A(p) \partial p/\partial t - \nabla\cdot (\kappa(x,p) \nabla p) = f,\qquad t \in (0,T],\quad x \in \Omega, \] for describing the process of unsaturated filtration. Hereby, \(p(t,x)\) is the pressure head, \(\kappa(x,p)\) is the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, and \(A(p) \partial p/\partial t = \partial \Theta(p)/\partial t\) with the volumetric soil water content \(\Theta\). At first, a multicontinuum flow model is derived by using the multicontinuum homogenization approach. Hereby a general multicontinuum model and the case with two continua are considered. In the first part of the presented numerical results, problems with a separable hydraulic conductivity are discussed. Relationships between the effective properties and the hydraulic conductivity are shown. In the second part, two model problems for the case of two continua are described. In one problem the case of a strong contrast between the hydraulic conductivities in the two continua is considered, and in the other one a low contrast.