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Analytical Expression for Soil Water Diffusivity Derived from Horizontal Infiltration Experiments
Author(s) -
Meyer J. J.,
Warrick A. W.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
soil science society of america journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1435-0661
pISSN - 0361-5995
DOI - 10.2136/sssaj1990.03615995005400060006x
Subject(s) - sorptivity , thermal diffusivity , infiltration (hvac) , water content , soil science , mechanics , soil water , mathematics , liquid water content , nonlinear regression , function (biology) , thermodynamics , environmental science , physics , geotechnical engineering , geology , regression analysis , statistics , porosity , cloud computing , evolutionary biology , biology , computer science , operating system
A technique is developed that utilizes a rational function θ = ( A 1 + A 3 λ)/(1 + A 2 λ) to fit water content (or other liquid) profiles resulting from horizontal infiltration as used in the Bruce‐Klute method for determining soil water diffusivity. In the above function, θ is water content (L 3 L −3 ), λ is the Boltzmann variable, and A 1 , A 2 , and A 3 are constants. The Boltzmann variable, λ, is equal to xt ‐0.5 , where x is the distance from the inlet of a horizontal soil column and t is time from the commencement of liquid imbibition. The function is easily fit to experimental data by either linear or nonlinear regression techniques and leads to analytical expressions for sorptivity and soil water diffusivity without further numerical approximation or fitting. If boundary conditions are specified, only one of the three coefficients is left to be determined. The rational function provided excellent approximations to liquid distribution for water and alcohol horizontal infiltration experiments in this study and is adequate for representation of experimental data of several other researchers. An example is included to illustrate that the approach is also applicable to determination of diffusivity for the hot‐air method.