Influence of permeability on rainfall infiltration based on water gas two phase flow

Abstract

The permeability function is one of the key properties in unsaturated soil mechanics and variation of parameters in soil water characteristic curve can easily affect matric suction as well as infiltration. The purpose of this research is to explore the significant effect of parameters in SWCC on rainfall infiltration. A water gas two phase flow analysis method was conducted to investigate the influence of parameters in SWCC on stable infiltration intensity. Result showed that when saturation was low, stable intensity of infiltration was greatly affected by matric suction because the modified parameters were related to pore size distribution such as air entry value ρ0 and parameter m. When saturation was close to 1, the influence of soil infiltration intensity was almost not affected by matric suction. The minimum value of stable infiltration of intensity was mainly determined by the intrinsic permeability, while saturation of this value was mainly affected by soil water characteristic curve, intrinsic permeability coefficient of soil as well as water relative permeability coefficient.