Numerical and Experimental Study of Flow from a Leaking Buried Pipe in an Unsaturated Porous Media

Considering the numerous applications of the study of the flow due to leakage in a buried pipe in unsaturated porous media, finding a proper model to explain the influence of the effective factors is of great importance.There are various important factors involved in this type of flow such as: pipe leakage size and location, burial depth, the degree of the saturation of the surrounding porous medium, characteristics of the porous medium, fluid type and pressure of the upstream.In this study, the flow through unsaturated porous media due to leakage of a buried pipe for up and down leakage location is studied experimentally and numerically and their results are compared. Study results show that Darcy equation together with BCM method (for calculating the relative permeability) have suitable ability for predicting the flow due to leakage of buried pipes in unsaturated porous media.

Authors:

• S.M.Hosseinalipour
• H.Aghakhani

Keywords:

• Buried
• Leaking pipe
• Porous media
• Unsaturated

References:

[1] Philip, J.R., 1968. Steady infiltration from buried point sources and
spherical cavities. Water Resour. Res. 4, 1039-1047.
[2] Schwartzman, M., Zur, B., 1986. Emitter spacing and geometry of
wetted soil volume. J. Irrig. Drain. Eng. 112 (3), 242-253.
[3] Ben-Asher, J., Phene, C.J., 1996. Surface and subsurface drip irrigation:
an analysis by a numerical model. Rep., Jacob Blaustein Institute for
Desert Research, B.G University of Negev.
[4] Moncef, H., Hedi, D., Jelloul, B., Mohamed, M., 2002. Approach for
predicting the wetting front depth beneath a surface point source: theory
and numerical aspect. Irrig. Drain. 51, 347-360.
[5] Lazarovitch, N.,Warrick, A.W., Furman, A., Sˇimu˚ nek, J., 2007.
Subsurface water distribution from drip irrigation described by moment
analyses. Vadose Zone J. 6 (1), 116-123.
[6] Provenzano, G., 2007. Using HYDRUS-2D simulation model to
evaluate wetted soil volume in subsurface drip irrigation systems. J.
Irrig. Drain. Eng. 133 (4),342-349.
[7] Patel, N., Rajput, T.B.S., 2008. Dynamics and modeling of soil water
under subsurface drip irrigated onion. Agricultural Water management.
95, 1335-1349.
[8] Siyal, A.A., Sk T.H., 2009. Measured and simulated soil wetting
patterns under porous clay pipe sub-surface irrigation. Agricultural
Water Management. 96, 893-904.
[9] C. NGO PhD thesis, 2006. "bouyancy-induced heat and mass transport
in a porous medium near a buried pipe". PhD Thesis, University of
Higher Education, Oklahoma
[10] Chen J, Hopmans JW, Grismer ME (1999) Parameter estimation of twofluid
capillary pressure-saturation and permeability functions. Adv
Water Resour 22(5):479-493.