Abstract
The TalbotOgden model is a mass conservative method to simulate flow of a wetting liquid in variably-saturated porous media. The principal feature of this model is the discretization of the moisture content domain into bins. This paper gives an analysis of the relationship between the number of bins and the computed flux. Under the circumstances of discrete bins and discontinuous wetting fronts, we show that fluxes increase with the number of bins. We then apply this analysis to the continuous case and get an upper bound of the difference of infiltration rates when the number of bins tends to infinity. We also extend this model by creating a two dimensional moisture content domain so that there exists a probability distribution of the moisture content for different soil systems. With these theoretical and experimental results and using a Dynamic Data Driven Application System (DDDAS), sensors can be put in soils to detect the infiltration fluxes, which are important to compute the proper number of bins for a specific soil system and predict fluxes. Using this feedback control loop, the extended TalbotOgden model can be made more efficient for estimating infiltration into soils.