The representation of time variant free surface seepage using finite difference methods: a review

Abstract

AbstractSeveral numerical techniques are available for the representation of time variant free surface seepage, notably finite elements, boundary elements and finite difference methods. This work concentrates on the latter. Over the last twenty years several papers have been published on the representation of free surface seepage using finite differences but unfortunately each paper advocates the use of different approximations and stability criteria. The choice of which variation to use is therefore a problem. In this paper the various methods are reviewed and tested against a variety of solutions and recommendations are made as to which method is the most stable and accurate.