The influence research of surface water depth to infiltration

Abstract

The infiltration research is very important in slope engineering. When surface soil is saturated under rainfall condition, the boundary condition on surface soil is usually to be considered as imposed head instead of flux, and the water depth is simplified as 0. However, how does it influence the infiltration if ignore the water depth? In this paper, based on Richards' equation, the infiltration process of a homogeneous soil column under a fixed head boundary on the column top is simulated by FEM method. With five different water depths on the top, the infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration are calculated. The results show that the depth of water has great influence to infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration. The mistakes of the method simplifying the water depth as 0 can not be neglected. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.