Periodic homogenization of a pseudo-parabolic equation via a spatial-temporal decomposition

Pseudo-parabolic equations have been used to model unsaturated fluid flow in porous media. In this paper it is shown how a pseudo-parabolic equation can be upscaled when using a spatio-temporal decomposition employed in the Peszyn'ska-Showalter-Yi paper [8]. The spatial-temporal decomposition transforms the pseudo-parabolic equation into a system containing an elliptic partial differential equation and a temporal ordinary differential equation. To strengthen our argument, the pseudo-parabolic equation has been given advection/convection/drift terms. The upscaling is done with the technique of periodic homogenization via two-scale convergence. The well-posedness of the extended pseudo-parabolic equation is shown as well. Moreover, we argue that under certain conditions, a non-local-in-time term arises from the elimination of an unknown.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figure

Numerical Simulations of Gravity-Driven Fingering in Unsaturated Porous Media Using a Non-Equilibrium Model

This is a computational study of gravity-driven fingering instabilities in unsaturated porous media. The governing equations and corresponding numerical scheme are based on the work of Nieber et al. [Ch. 23 in Soil Water Repellency, eds. C. J. Ritsema and L. W. Dekker, Elsevier, 2003] in which non-monotonic saturation profiles are obtained by supplementing the Richards equation with a non-equilibrium capillary pressure-saturation relationship, as well as including hysteretic effects. The first part of the study takes an extensive look at the sensitivity of the finger solutions to certain key parameters in the model such as capillary shape parameter, initial saturation, and capillary relaxation coefficient. The second part is a comparison to published experimental results that demonstrates the ability of the model to capture realistic fingering behaviour