Transient Infiltration from Cavities. II: Analysis and Application

Abstract

A physically based infiltration model describing two‐dimensional infiltration from cavities, for example irrigation furrows, is discussed. According to the different stages of model development, three versions with varying levels of sophistication are analyzed. These analyses include the investigation of short and long time behavior and the impact of fundamentally different soil types on the outcome of the models. The results show clearly that the curvature of the cavity has to be taken into account, which excludes the simplest model version from this kind of application. The other two model versions performed very well. Comparisons with the results of a laboratory experiment (together with simulations of all phases of furrow irrigation in different soils) show that up to considerable infiltration times the time‐dependent component of the shape parameter can be neglected. The new principle is recommended as an alternative to the empirical infiltration formulas presently used in numerical modeling of furrow irrigation, enhancing its computational efficiency.