ESTIMATING SOIL HYDRAULIC PARAMETERS USING A METAHEURISTIC ALGORITHM

This paper proposes a complete mechanism for assessing the movement of water ine unsaturated media. In the direct problem, the flow equation for unsaturated media based on Richards equation is numerically modeled with finite differences weight schemes. In the inverse problem the soil hydraulic param...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Modelling in Civil Environmental Engineering (Online) 2010-01 (5), p.102
Main Authors: Dobre, Gabriela-Roxana, Drobot, Radu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Hydraulics
Optimization
Soils
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This paper proposes a complete mechanism for assessing the movement of water ine unsaturated media. In the direct problem, the flow equation for unsaturated media based on Richards equation is numerically modeled with finite differences weight schemes. In the inverse problem the soil hydraulic parameters given by Mualem - van Genuchten model can be estimated using metaheuristic optimization algorithms. Metaheuristic algorithms have the advantage that the function chosen for optimization does not need to be continuous or differentiable because we are not using the grathent or Hessian matrix from classic optimization methods. From metaheuristic algorithms, we choose ant colony optimization because it is a new approach that has performed much better than other optimization algorithms. In the field of soil, hydrogeology and geostatistics Ant colony optimization applications based on the behavior of ants seeking an optimal path between their colony and the source of food is just in the beginnings. For this purpose the ant colony optimization is modified to estimate Mualem-van Genuchten unsaturated hydraulic soil parameters. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:2784-1391