Evaluation of Method of Line (MOL) for Solution of Soil Water Flow Equations and Comparison with Finite Element Method (FEM)

Abstract

The objective of this research is to evaluate Method of Line (MOL) used for solution of water flow equations through porous media using MATLAB package functions for solution of ordinary differential equations ODE,s , instead of writing long programs codes. sink & source term to MOL model were included. Then Comparing MOL model with another model that uses finite element method in solving water flow equations(FEM) in one dimensional flow using computer program code in FORTRAN. Two cases were examined for evaluation and comparison of these two models. Firstly, infiltration phenomena using sandy soil was studied with the same parameter for both models. Results show that there is a divergence between the two models along time of 60 minutes of infiltration. Changes of moisture content with soil depth were sharp with FEM model. Second case, data of the volume of water content for wheat field where used taking irrigation and evaporation into account, along the growth period of wheat crop and different depths up to 100 cm. Results show that output of FEM model has high degree of agreement with the measured data for all depths and along all period of growth. Data given by MOL model were less in values than measured data for all depths and along all period of wheat growth time.