Simulation of water retention and hydraulic conductivity in soil using a three-dimensional network

The conduction of water by soil is fundamental to the way in which soils transport nutrients and pollutants into groundwater. The derivation of relations between water flow and void structure has relied on the implicit assumption that water flows through aligned unconnected cylindrical capillary tubes. We describe a three-dimensionally interconnected model of void structure, called Pore-Cor, which simulates the intrusion of a non-wetting fluid and drainage of a wetting fluid. The model is calibrated by fitting it to the water retention curves of a sandy soil at four depths. The experimental drainage pressures are related to the radii of the entries to the voids by the Laplace equation. The necessities of using this equation, and of employing a simplified void geometry, introduce major approximations into the modelling. Nevertheless, the model is sufficiently precise and versatile to predict trends in other properties usefully. It is illustrated in this work by a close correlation between a predicted and experimental change in saturated hydraulic conductivity with depth, and a realistic unsaturated hydraulic conductivity curve. The saturated and unsaturated hydraulic values are shown to be much more realistic than those predicted by the aligned cylinders model. In addition, the simulations by Pore-Cor indicate that the void network within the sandy soil is acting in a structured rather than a random manner. The Pore-Cor model is currently being used to explain the matrix-flow characteristics of tracers and pollutants.