Simulating Structure Formation in Soils across Scales using Discontinuous Galerkin Methods

This thesis deals with mathematical modeling, analysis, and numerical realization of microaggregates in soils. These microaggregates have the size of a few hundred micrometers and can be understood as the fundamental building units of soil. Thus, understanding their dynamically evolving, three-dimensional structure is crucial for modeling and interpreting many soil parameters such as diffusivities and flow paths that come into play in CO2-sequestration or oil recovery scenarios.

Moreover, effects and knowledge deduced from the model are transfered to scales which are more relevant for applications. The quality of these averaged models is of general interest, since simulations for the field-scale that resolve the pore-scale are not applicable for economical reasons. Thus, this book compares parameterizations of diffusivities with mathematically rigorous results and gives suggestions to improve the formulas that can be found in the literature.

Last but not least, it is imperative to apply a proper numerical method to implement the model in silico. The local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method seems to be suitable for this task, since it is locally mass-conservative and is stable for discontinuous data - that might, for example, originate from the discrete movement of the geometry or from the sharp boundaries between the different phases. Additionally, this method has no problems with complicated transfer conditions. These aspects are demonstrated in a mathematically rigorous way, and the method is improved upon by reducing the linear system of equations resulting from the discretization. This is a real enhancement, since it does not diminish the order of convergence but decreases the computational costs.