The capillary hysteresis model HYSTR: User`s guide

The potential disposal of nuclear waste in the unsaturated zone at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, has generated increased interest in the study of fluid flow through unsaturated media. In the near future, large-scale field tests will be conducted at the Yucca Mountain site, and work is now being done to design and analyze these tests. As part of these efforts a capillary hysteresis model has been developed. A computer program to calculate the hysteretic relationship between capillary pressure {phi} and liquid saturation (S{sub 1}) has been written that is designed to be easily incorporated into any numerical unsaturated flow simulator that computes capillary pressure as a function of liquid saturation. This report gives a detailed description of the model along with information on how it can be interfaced with a transport code. Although the model was developed specifically for calculations related to nuclear waste disposal, it should be applicable to any capillary hysteresis problem for which the secondary and higher order scanning curves can be approximated from the first order scanning curves. HYSTR is a set of subroutines to calculate capillary pressure for a given liquid saturation under hysteretic conditions