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07-September-2016
Green-Ampt Equation
In the last class, we discussed that there are analytical and empirical
solutions to the one dimensional Richards equation.
Green-Ampt provided a method that can be treated as analytical solution to
the Richards equation for a simplified case.
You know that the wetting front in Green-Ampt’s method was sharp.
(Eqn.1)
(The reason we are taking absolute value is to infer that the data of suction head will be available as
positive value in the data and we need to take its negative value for fluid flow energy head).
The Darcy velocity can be, therefore, given as:
(Eqn.2)
(Eqn.3)
Therefore,
Hence,
(Eqn.4)
In the above expression, you have both f and F appearing, which are
unknowns.
Therefore,
(Eqn.5)
i.e.
Integrating up to time t,
Use the mathematical methods to solve such an integration. E.g. the integration of
.
Therefore, the solution is:
(Eqn.6)
While solving, there are some other technical terms that need to be taken
care of:
Effective saturation,
Effective porosity,
Therefore,
Again,
As discussed earlier, there are intrinsic relations between suction head and water
content that are empirically expressed by many scientists like Brooks and Corey,
van-Genuchten, etc.
Example
Use Green-Ampt method to compute infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration at
every 0.25-hr from the beginning of infiltration for a silty clay soil with porosity, ε
= 0.479; Suction head, Ψ = 29.22 cm; K = 0.05 cm/hr. Assume the initial effective
saturation is 30 percent and it have continuous ponding. The effective porosity for
the silty clay soil is 0.423.
Solution
For the silty soil,
cm
cm/hr
Therefore,
(Eqn.1)
For each time instant, say t1 = 0.25 hr, t2 = 0.50 hr, t3 = 0.75 hr, and t4 = 1.0 hr, the
above non-linear equation (1) is formulated.
For t = 0.25 hr, equation (1) is: