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Absorption of water by a soil from a circular cylindrical source
Author(s) -
Singh Rameshwar
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/wr008i006p01581
Subject(s) - water content , moisture , thermal diffusivity , vadose zone , soil science , absorption (acoustics) , geotechnical engineering , stratum , geology , environmental science , groundwater , materials science , thermodynamics , physics , composite material
The disposal of waste water into a confined stratum of the earth's crust through recharge wells is gaining increasing popularity. Underground burying of radioactive liquid and solid wastes has been practiced for years at Hanford, Oakridge, and other places. These highly dangerous wastes can diffuse out in lateral directions if the containers crack due to earthquakes and internal pressures in relatively thin confined stratum. These situations are often characterized as the absorption of moisture by the partially saturated soil surrounding the disposal site. This phenomenon is governed by a nonlinear partial differential equation, subject to initial and boundary conditions. A method of weighted residuals is applied to extract an explicit solution, which is simple for applications. The solution is valid for any form of the diffusivity function and can be used with any value of initial moisture content. The problem with the initial soil moisture at the threshold level (the minimum moisture content at which the permeability exists) has been investigated by Philip, and the corresponding results of the present paper compare very well with the results obtained by Philip.