VAM2D: Variably saturated analysis model in two dimensions

This report documents a two-dimensional finite element model, VAM2D, developed to simulate water flow and solute transport in variably saturated porous media. Both flow and transport simulation can be handled concurrently or sequentially. The formulation of the governing equations and the numerical procedures used in the code are presented. The flow equation is approximated using the Galerkin finite element method. Nonlinear soil moisture characteristics and atmospheric boundary conditions (e.g., infiltration, evaporation and seepage face), are treated using Picard and Newton-Raphson iterations. Hysteresis effects and anisotropy in the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity can be taken into account if needed. The contaminant transport simulation can account for advection, hydrodynamic dispersion, linear equilibrium sorption, and first-order degradation. Transport of a single component or a multi-component decay chain can be handled. The transport equation is approximated using an upstream weighted residual method. Several test problems are presented to verify the code and demonstrate its utility. These problems range from simple one-dimensional to complex two-dimensional and axisymmetric problems. This document has been produced as a user's manual. It contains detailed information on the code structure along with instructions for input data preparation and sample input and printed output for selected test problems. Also included are instructionsmore » for job set up and restarting procedures. 44 refs., 54 figs., 24 tabs.« less