UNSATURATED WATER-FLOW AROUND OBSTRUCTIONS SIMULATED BY 2-DIMENSIONALRANKINE BODIES

Unsaturated flow systems were studied which consisted of two-dimension al doublets embedded in a porous medium. The isolated flow regions for med around the doublets (source-sink combinations) were called Rankine bodies as a generalization of the classical geometries used in fluid mechanics for solutions to Laplace's equation. The motivation was to s imulate unsaturated flow around subterranean objects, such as cavities and rock inclusions. The results were generally successful and patter ns for single inclusions qualitatively matched more elaborate solution s based on scattering theory. A complex system (of five inclusions) wa s presented to simulate a layered case of rock inclusions within a pro file.