Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

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Journal of Computational and Applied

Mathematics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cam

Fully discrete IPDGHMM for multiscale Richards equation of

unsaturated flow in porous media
Haitao Cao a,b , Tao Yu c , Xingye Yue b,
a

Department of Mathematics and Physics, Campus of Changzhou, Hohai University, Changzhou, Jiangsu 213022, China

Department of Mathematics, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China

Department of Mathematics, Jinggangshan University, Jian, Jiangxi 343009, China

article

info

Article history:
Received 3 June 2014
Received in revised form 15 March 2015
Keywords:
Richards equation
Heterogeneous multiscale method
Interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin
method
Heterogeneous porous media

abstract
In this paper, we propose a fully discrete method for the multiscale Richards equation
which describes the flow transport in unsaturated heterogeneous porous media. Under the
framework of heterogeneous multiscale method (HMM), a fully discrete interior penalty
discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (IPDGFEM) is applied over a macro-scale
mesh. The fully discrete method means that it takes into account not only the fully macroscale discretization but also the fully micro-scale discretization for local cell problems. Error
estimates between the numerical solution and the solution of homogenized problem are
derived under the assumption that the permeability is periodic. Numerical experiments
with periodic and random permeability are carried out both for Gardener model and van
GenuchtenMualem model of Richards equation to show the efficiency and accuracy of the
proposed method.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Prediction of unsaturated fluid movement in porous media is an important problem in many branches of science and
engineering, such as soil science, agricultural engineering, and groundwater hydrology. The classical Richards equation
[14] is usually used to describe the unsaturated flow in porous media. Numerous papers have been published on numerical
schemes for the Richards equation, for example [5,6] and references therein. However, due to complex heterogeneity of
natural media and scarcity of the available field data, the coefficients in the equation maybe oscillate rapidly with large
contrast. So we face up to multiscale problems in fact. The aim of this paper is to introduce a fully discrete numerical method
under the frame of heterogeneous multiscale method (HMM) [7,8] by using the interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin finite
element method (IPDGFEM) [9,10] on the macro-scale mesh, to solve the following multiscale Richards equation

K x ,

D , = f ,
(1.1)
t
x3

where is the characteristic length representing the small scale variability of the media, is volumetric water content, D is
the unsaturated diffusivity tensor, K is the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity, x3 denotes the direction of the gravitational
field, and f is the sources/sinks. Based on experimental results, appropriate constitutive relationships between , D and K
have been proposed in [1,3,4].

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xyyue@suda.edu.cn (X. Yue).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cam.2015.05.012
0377-0427/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

353

Solving this problem by traditional numerical methods such as standard finite element methods (FEM) and standard finite
difference methods (FDM) is difficult because of limited computer power and memory. However in realistic situation, we
most care about the macroscopic properties of the problem. In recent years, various methods of upscaling or homogenization
have been developed with replacing the governing equation by the effective equation, whose solutions can be resolved on
a coarse-scale mesh [11,2,1216].
Recently also a number of multiscale numerical methods, such as multiscale finite element method (MsFEM) [17],
heterogeneous multiscale method (HMM) [18,19,7,8], and upscaling method [11,2,12] have been proposed to solve the
general multiscale problems based on similar ideas. MsFEMs central idea is to incorporate the local information of leading
order differential operator into finite element basis. HMM is to develop a complete coarse grid algorithm based on solving
local problem in each sampling cell to estimate the missing macro data. Upscaling method is firstly to upscale the multiscale
coefficients in each macro element to get equivalent coefficients, then to solve the upscaling equation on a coarse-scale
mesh. Generally, FEM or FDM is chosen in these multiscale methods on the macro scale. However, the DG-FEM has become
popular in recent years as its local conversation properties and flexibility in meshing and been extensively studied for elliptic,
hyperbolic and parabolic problems [9,10,20].
As to the numerical method for the multiscale Richards equation (1.1), we would like to point out the work of Chen [2],
where the homogenization theory was established for (1.1), and also a numerical upscaling method was developed and
analyzed.
To our knowledge, DG coupling with multiscale method for linear multiscale problems has been developed in several
works. Such as, a local DG method based on HMM has been proposed in [20] for one-dimensional hyperbolic and parabolic
problems but the ideas there cannot be easily extended to handle multi-dimensional multiscale problems; in [21,19], an
IPDGHMM is considered to solve the pure diffusion problems, where one only needs to treat the flux induced by diffusion;
by constructing the multiscale basis in DG space, the authors developed a multiscale IPDG method for elliptic problems
with rough coefficients in [22]. For nonlinear multiscale problems, choosing the DG-FEM as the macro solver is least
studied. The model we are considered is a nonlinear convectiondiffusion problem. The crucial ingredient of applying DG
to this multiscale problems is to construct macroscopic element-wise flux and interface flux induced by both diffusion and
convection.
In this paper, a fully discrete numerical method based on HMM and IPDGFEM is developed on a macro-scale mesh.
We choose IPDG as a macro-scale solver since we are treating a convectiondiffusion problem and DG has the advantage
to handle this kind of problems. The macro-scale missing information such as element-wise flux and interface flux is
constructed by solving properly chosen local problems over the sampling cell at fine scale. This is the key point to define a
correct method. Without fully resolving the fine scale problem on the whole domain, we can get the macro-scale numerical
solutions. Here fully discrete means that we consider not only the discretization both in time and space, the effect of
numerical quadrature over each macro-scale element and interface for IPDG, but also the numerical approximation for
the local cell problems at fine scale. The analysis for a fully discrete HMMFEM scheme for a linear time-independent pure
diffusion problem was first given by Abdulle [18].
The outline of the paper is as follows. In Section 2 we introduce the IPDGHMM for the model problem and main
convergence theory. In Section 3 we review the homogenization results for the nonlinear parabolic problems with periodic
coefficients and some other useful lemmas. In Section 4 we prove the error estimate between the solutions of IPDGHMM
and the solution of homogenization problem under the assumption that the coefficients are periodic. In Section 5 we present
some numerical examples for the Gardener model and van GenuchtenMualen model respectively to demonstrate the
accuracy and efficiency of our method.
2. IPDGHMM formulation and main results
Let Rd be a bounded polyhedral domain with boundary . Since many of the proofs are highly technical, we
shall restrict our attention to d = 2. The techniques used here may lead to a suboptimal estimate for the case d = 3. Let
QT = (0, T ), ST = (0, T ), 0 < T < +. Consider the following general nonlinear parabolic equation

t u (g (x, u ) + a (x, u ) u ) = f (x)
u (x, t ) = 0
u (x, 0) = u0

in QT ,
on ST ,
in ,

(2.1)

where is the characteristic length representing the small scale variability of the media. Throughout this paper the following
assumptions are imposed.

(H1) a (x, u ) = (aij (x/, u ))1i,j2 is a symmetric, positive definite, bounded tensor:
| |2 aij (x, u )i j | |2 ,

Rd ,

for some positive constants and , and y aij (y, s), s aij (x, s) is uniformly bounded.

(H2) g (x, u ) = (gi (x/, u )) is a bounded vector, and

g (y, s), s gi (x, s)

y i

is uniformly bounded.

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H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

The existence, uniqueness and regularity results may be found in [23].

Let TH be a shape-regular and quasi-uniform triangulation of . Denote the diameter of the triangle element K by HK ,
and H = maxK TH HK . We use the notation employed in [9,10]. Let e be an interior edge shared by elements K1 and K2 .
Define the unit normal vectors n1 and n2 on e pointing exterior to K1 and K2 . For a function , piecewise smooth on TH , with
i := |Ki we define

{} =

1
2

(1 + 2 ),

[] = 1 n1 + 2 n2 on e o ,

o is the set of interior edges. For e , the set of boundary edges of , we set
{} = ,

[] = n,

here n is the unit normal vector on the boundary edge pointing exterior.
First, let us introduce an IPDGFEM variational formulation of (2.1) on the space
W H = {v L2 ( ) : v|K Pk (K ), K TH },

(2.2)

where Pk (K ) is the space of all polynomials of degree not more than k on the triangle K , and we can define the norms for
any u W H as

u20, =

u20,k ,

|||u|||2 =

K TH

u20,k +

1
[u]20,e u W H ,
|
e
|
e

. Here and there, m,K and | |m,K are the H m Sobolev norm and seminorm on K respectively.
,H
T
For time scale we use back-ward Euler discretization. Let = M
, tj = j , j = 1, . . . , M, find uj W H , such that
,H

,H

uj uj 1
,H
,H
,H
H

,
+ (a (x, uj ) uj + g (x, uj ), )K

K TH
K

H
,H
H
)}upw , [ H ])e
}, [ H ])e + ({g (x, u,
)
u

({a (x, u,
j
j
j

where =

,H

se ([uj

], [ H ])e = (f , H ) H W H ,

,H

= PH u0

u0

(2.3)

where se = |cee| with constant ce > 0 independent of the mesh size, which is chosen large enough to hold the stability;
+
{g }upw is called the classical upwind flux and defined as {g }upw = {g } + n2 [g ], with n+ being the unit normal vector of
e and satisfies g n+ 0 and finally, PH u0 W H is any approximation of u0 such that

PH v v0,K CH k+1 |v|k+1,K ,

PH v v0,,K CH

k+1

K TH , v H k+1 ( ),

|v|k+1,,K ,

K TH , v W

(2.4)

k+1,

( ).

(2.5)

Directly solving (2.3), one must cope with the mesh size H . Instead of solving (2.3) on a fine mesh with a mesh size
resolving the small scale variability , our method is based on HMM and IPDG over a mesh of size H . First we choose
an IPDGFEM scheme with some numerical quadrature rules over the macro-scale regular triangulation TH , then at each
quadrature node, macro-scale information is supplied by solving numerically local problems in each sampling cell with fine
mesh of size h capable of resolving the scale of .
The fully discrete IPDGHMM formulation for (2.1) is as following: find UjH W H , j = 1, . . . , M, such that

UjH UjH1

K TH

AH ,K UjH

, ) +
H

A H ,e (UjH ; UjH , H ) + GH ,e (UjH ; H ) +

U0H = PH u0 ,

; )
H

se ([UjH ], [ H ])e

(f , )H ,K W ,

K TH

GH ,K UjH

UjH

(2.6)

H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

355

Fig. 1. The shape-regular triangulation and sampling cell.

with

.
(f , H )H ,K =
K ,l (f H )(xl ),
1lm

.
, H ) =
K ,l (ah (UjH ) UjH H )(xl )
1lm

1
.
a (x, UjH (xl )) Rh1 (UjH ) Rh1 ( H )dx,
K ,l
=
|I(xl ) | I(x )
1lm
l
.
H
H
H
H
GH ,K (Uj ; ) =
K ,l (gh (Uj ) )(xl )
1lm

1
.
g (x, UjH (xl )) Rh1 ( H )dx,
=
K ,l
|
I
|
(
x
)
I
l
(xl )
1lm

.
H
H
H
A H ,e (Uj ; Uj , ) =
e,r {ah (UjH ) UjH }(xr ) [ H ](xr )
1r n

1
.

H
h
H
=
e,r
a (x, Uj (xr )) R1 (Uj )dx [ H ](xr ),
|I(xr ) | I(xr )
1r n
.
GH ,e (UjH ; H ) =
e,r {gh (UjH )}upw (xr ) [ H ](xr )
1r n

1
.

H
h
H

H
=
e,r
a (x, Uj (xr )) R2 (Uj ) + g (x, Uj (xr ))dx
|I(xr ) | I(xr )
1r n
(

AH ,K UjH

UjH

(2.7)

(2.8)

(2.9)

[ H ](xr ),

(2.10)

upw

where xl , k,l and xr , e,r are the quadrature nodes and weights in element K and on edge e respectively, which will be
determined later. I(xl ) (I(xr ) ) is the sampling cell which is a square of size centered at the quadrature node xl (xr ) (see
Fig. 1). Rh1 (V H ) and Rh2 (V H ) are the numerical reconstructions from a macro-state V H W H , which are the standard linear
finite element solution of the following reconstruction problems respectively, h(< ) denotes the mesh grid size used by
FEM over each cell I(x) (x = xl or xr ).

(a (x, V H (x)) R1 (V H )) = 0
R1 (V H ) = V Hlin (x)

in I(x)
on I(x) ,

(a (x, V H (x)) R2 (V H )) = g (x, V H (x))

R2 (V H ) = V H (x),

(2.11)
in I(x)
on I(x) .

(2.12)

V Hlin (x) = V H (x) + V H (x) (x x ) is the linear approximation of V H at point x .

Remark. Note that the reconstructed operator used in (2.10) is R2 rather than R1 in (2.8). This is a key point to derive a
correct macro-scale velocity gh (UjH (x)), then a correct macro flux at the interfaces of elements. Using R1 in (2.8), one could

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H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

define a macro bilinear form (g (U H ), H )K properly, but one could not expect to define in this way a proper bilinear form
as (g (U H ), H )e for an interface e.
In order to get an optimal order of accuracy, a proper numerical quadrature rule should be chosen based on the highest
degree k of polynomial in W H . For simplicity we denote the quadrature error by
EK (P ) =

Pdx
K

K ,l P (xl ),

Ee (P ) =

Pds
e

e,r P (xr ).

(2.13)

We suppose the quadrature schemes satisfy that P P2k1 , EK (P ) = 0, Ee (P ) = 0. So far the scheme is settled down, and
the porous media need not be periodic.
However, under the assumptions of (H1)(H2) and periodic media, i.e. a(y, s) and g (y, s) are periodic in y Y , it has
been shown that u convergent in a suitable topology to the solution of the following homogenization equation [2,1316]:

t u (g (u) + a (u) u) = f (x)

u(x, t ) = 0
u(x, 0) = u0

in QT ,
on ST ,
in ,

(2.14)

where for any s R, a and g are defined by

ai,j (s) =

|Y |

ai,j (y, s) + ai,k (y, s)

Y

j
dy,
yk

(2.15)

j (y, s) is the periodic solution of

j
y (a(y, s)y ) = y (a(y, s)ej ) in Y ,

j = 0.

(2.16)

gj (s) =

|Y |

gj (y, s) + ai,k (y, s)

Y

dy,
yk

(2.17)

(y, s) is the periodic solution of

(a(y, s)y ) = y (g (y, s)) in Y ,

= 0.

(2.18)

In order to give out our main theory, we also need the following regularity assumptions on the solution of (2.14).

(H3) u L2 (H 2 ), xui , xi uxj L (QT ), ut L2 (H 2 ), utt L (H 2 ).

2

where u L2 (H 2 ) is an abbreviation of u L2 (0, T ; H 2 ( )) and the others are alike.

Then under the periodic case, we can derive the following main convergent result. In the paper, we only consider the
case that k = 1 in the space W H of (2.2). An optimal error estimate is derived. However, for the case k = 2, we need more
assumptions to obtain an optimal error estimate (see [24] for the discussions on the finite element methods).
Theorem 2.1. Suppose a(y, s) and g (y, s) be periodic in y Y (a unit square) and (H1)(H3) hold. If f H 2 ( ), u0 H 2 ( ),
2 a(y,s)
s2

2 g (y,s)

and s2
tj , it holds that

are uniformly bounded, then for the solutions UjH of (2.6) and uj of the homogenized equation (2.14) at time

2
max
uj L2 ( ) C
+ +H + ,
1jM

1/2

2
M

|||UjH uj |||2
+ +H + ,
C

j =1
UjH

2
h

where and throughout the whole paper the general constant C is independent of , , H , and h.

H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

357

3. Preliminaries
In this section we will firstly review homogenization theory [2,1316]. Assume that (H1)-(H2) hold, and aij (y, s), gi (y, s)
1
1
C 1 (Cper
(Rd ); R). Here Cper
(Rd ) stands for the collection of all C 1 (Rd ) periodic functions with respect to the unit square Y .
It is shown in [13,15] that a satisfies | |2 aij (s)i j | |2 with the same positive constants and ; a (s) and

g (s) inherit the properties of a(, s) and g (, s) with respect to variable s; j (y, s) and (y, s) are differentiable in s and the
derivatives are uniformly bounded.
Denote u1 (x, t , x ) = j ( x , u) xu + ( x , u) and u1 = u(x, t ) + u1 (x, t , x ), then there exists the following theorem.
j

Theorem 3.1 ([2]). Let u and u be the solution of (2.1) and (2.14), u1 defined as above, then there exists a constant C
independent of , such that

u u1 L (0,T ;L2 ( )) + (u u1 )L2 (QT ) C .

Secondly, for numerical quadrature and IPDGFEM theory, we need the following useful lemmas.
Lemma 3.2 ([25, Chapter 4]). If p P2k2 (K ), EK (p) = 0, a(x) is coercive, then

l (a(x) p p)(xl ) C p20,K .

Lemma 3.3 ([25, Chapter 4]). If p P2k1 (K ), EK (p) = 0, a(x) W k+1, (K ), then
EK (a p r ) CH k+1 ak+1,,K pk1,K r 0,K ,

p, r Pk (K ).

Lemma 3.4 ([25, Chapter 4]). If p P2k1 (K ), EK (p) = 0, f W k+1,q (K ) and k + 1

1

EK (fp) CH k+1 (meas(K )) 2

1q

f k+1,q,K p1,K ,

n
q

> 0, q [1, +], then

p Pk (K ).

Lemma 3.5 ([26]). For each K TH , let e be an edge of K , then there exists a positive constant C such that

v20,e C (H 1 v20,K + H v20,K ),

v H 1 (K ).

At the end of this section, we formulate the discrete IPDGFEM for homogenized problem (2.14) and estimate the error
between the solution of the homogenized problem and its IPDG approximation, which will be needed later and can be
H
regarded as an extension of the work of [9,27] to take into account the effect of numerical quadrature. Find uH
j W , such
that

H
uH
j uj 1

A H , K uH
j

uH
j

, ) +
H

GH ,K uH
j

H
se ([uH
j ], [ ])e =

uH
0

; )
H

H
H
H
H

A H ,e (uH
j ; uj , ) + G H , e ( uj ; )

(f , H )H ,K H W H ,
K

= P H u0 ,

(3.1)

where
H
H
AH ,K (uH
j ; uj , ) =

K ,l (a (uHj ) uHj H )(xl ),

(3.2)

l
H
GH ,K (uH
j ; ) =

K ,l (g (uHj ) H )(xl ),

(3.3)

(3.4)

l
H
H
A H ,e (uH
j ; uj , ) =

e,r ({a (uHj ) uHj } [ H ])(xr ),

r
H
G H ,e (uH
j ; ) =

e,r ({g (uHj )}upw [ H ])(xr ).

(3.5)

It is clear that the solution of (2.14) satisfies

(tj ),
+
(a (uj ) uj + g (uj ), H )K
({a (uj ) uj }, [ H ])e

t
K
e
K
K

({g (uj )}upw , [ H ])e +

se ([uj ], [ H ])e =
(f , H )K , H W H
e

(3.6)

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H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

where uj = u(x, tj ). Set

H
H
BH (uH
j ; uj , ) =

H
H
AH ,K (uH
j ; uj , )

H
H
A H ,e (uH
j ; uj , ) +

H
se ([uH
j ], [ ])e ,

.
(a (uj ) uj , H )K
({a (uj ) uj }, [ H ])e +
se ([uj ], [ H ])e .

B(uj ; uj , H ) =

In order to get an optimal error estimate, the following results about the elliptic projection will be used.
Lemma 3.6. Under the assumptions of Theorem 2.1, there exists a unique function Z W H satisfying
B(u; Z , H ) = B(u; u, H ),

H W H ,

(3.7)

and the error = Z u satisfies, for any t (0, T ],

0, CH 2 u2, ,
|||||| CH u2, ,
2

j 0, CH (u2, + ut 2, ),
j = 1 (j j1 ).
where

j can be derived by a similar

Proof. All the conclusions except the last one can be found in [9]. The error estimate for
argument for t in Theorem 4.5 of [9]. In fact, due to B(u; , H ) = 0, we have
1

j, H ) =
B(uj ;

(B(uj1 ; j1 , H ) B(uj ; j1 , H )) F ( H ),

and
F ( H ) =
Thanks to

((a (uj ) a (uj1 )), H )K

({(a (uj ) a (uj1 ))}, [ H ])e .

uj uj1

0,, C t u0,, and Lemma 3.5, we get

a 1,,K t u0,,K 0,K H 0,K +

a 1,,e t u0,,e 0,e [ H ]0,e
F ( )

0,K 0,K +

0,e [ ]0,e

20,K + H (H 1 20,K + H 20,K ) M1 ||| H |||

C ||| H |||

and similarly we have F () M2 2, ( H 2 ( ) H01 ( )). Applying Lemma 4.4 in [9], we have

j 0, C (|||
j ||| + M1 )H + M2 = C (|||||| + |||
j |||)H + 0, .

j ||| can be bounded similarly to |||t ||| (Theorem 4.5 in [9]) as:
The term |||
j ||| CH (u2, + ut 2, ).
|||
Combining all the above, the last inequality is proved.

Lemma 3.7 ([9]). Under the assumption of Theorem 2.1, there exists a constant C such that

Zj 0,, + sup
e

|e|

[Zj ]0,,e C .

Based on the above preliminarily works, we can first derive the following result.
Theorem 3.8. Under the assumption of Theorem 2.1, let uH
j and uj denote solutions of (2.14) and (3.1) at time tj (j = 1, . . . , M )
respectively. If k = 1 in (2.2), then
2
max uH
j uj 0, C (H + ),

1jM

j =1

1/2
|||

uH
j

uj |||

C (H + ).

H. Cao et al. / Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 290 (2015) 352369

359

Proof. We first split it into two parts

H
uH
j uj = (uj Zj ) + (Zj uj ) j + j .

(3.8)

j has been bounded in Lemma 3.6. So we only need to estimate j .

Let t uj = t u|t =tj . Subtract (3.6) from (3.1) and choose H = j , we get
j j1

, j + BH (uHj ; uHj , j ) B(uj ; uj , j )

K
K

=
(j + t uj uj , j )K +
(g (uj ), j )K GH ,K (uHj ; j )
K

H ,e (uHj ; j ) ({g (uj )}upw , [j ])e +

G

(f , j )H ,K (f , j )K .

(3.9)

Set
l.h.s = Tl1 + Tl2

r.h.s = Tr1 + Tr2 + Tr3 + Tr4 .

and

We will deal with all these terms one by one. For the terms on the left hand side,
Tl1

(j 20, j1 20, ).

H
Tl2 = BH (uH
j ; j , j ) + (BH (uj ; Zj , j ) B(uj ; Zj , j )) + B(uj ; j , j ).

By B(uj ; j , j ) = 0 (Lemma 3.6), we have

H
Tl2 = BH (uH
j ; j , j ) + BH (uj ; Zj , j ) B(uj ; Zj , j )

= Tl21 + Tl22 .
Noticing e,r CH and using Lemma 3.2, Lemma 3.5 and the inverse inequality, we have, by setting ce sufficiently large,
that
Tl21 =

AH ,K (uH
j ; j , j )

C j 20, , C

e,r

A H ,e (uH
j ; j , j ) +

se ([j ], [j ])e

e,r |j |0,,e |[j ]|0,,e +

ce
[j ]20,e
|e|
e

C21 |||j ||| .

2

Rewrite Tl22 as
Tl22 = BH (uH
j ; Zj , j ) BH (uj ; Zj , j ) + BH (uj ; Zj , j ) B(uj ; Zj , j )

= Tl221 + Tl222 .
By (2.4), (2.5), Lemma 3.6 and the local inverse inequality, we have

uHj uj 0,,K uHj PH uj 0,,K + PH uj uj 0,,K

C (H 1 uHj PH uj 0,K + H 2 |uj |2,,K )
C (H 1 j 0,K + H 1 PH uj Zj 0,K + H 2 |uj |2,,K )
C (H 1 (j 0,K + j 0,K ) + H uj 2,K + H 2 |uj |2,,K ),

(3.10)

and by Lemma 3.5, we get in a similar way that

uHj uj 0,,e uHj PH uj 0,,e + PH uj uj 0,,e

C (H 1/2 uHj PH uj 0,e + H 2 |uj |2,,e )
C (H 1 uHj PH uj 0,K + |uHj PH uj |1,K + H 2 |uj |2,,e )
C (H 1 (j 0,K + PH uj Zj 0,K ) + H 2 |uj |2,,K )
C (H 1 (j 0,K + j 0,K ) + H uj 2,K + H 2 |uj |2,,K ).

(3.11)

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By Lemma 3.7, inverse inequality and the above results, noting that K ,l CHK2 and e,r CHe , we have

|Tl221 | C

K ,l (uHj uj ) Zj j 0,,K + C

K ,l

e,r

e,r {(uHj uj ) Zj }[j ]0,,e

C H 4 (|uj |22,, + uj 22, ) + j 20, + j 20, + |||j |||2

C H 4 + j 20, + j 20, + |||j |||2 .

Using Lemmas 3.3, 3.5, 3.7, we get

|Tl222 | C

H 2 a (uj )2, Zj 0,K j 0,K + C

H 2 a (uj )2, Zj 0,e [j ]0,e

CH 4 + |||j |||2 .
Here we have also used the chain rule and the regularity of u (assumption H3) to get the boundary of a (uj )2, . The first
term at the right hand side of (3.9) can bounded by Cauchy inequality

j 20, + j 20, + 2 utt 20, ).

Tr1 C (
For the term Tr2 , using Lemma 3.4, (3.10), inverse inequality and the regularity of u and g , we have
Tr2

|EK (g (uj )j )| +

K ,l |(g (uHj ) g (uj ), j )(xl ) |

K ,l

H 3 g (uj )2,,K j 0,K + C

H g (uj )2,,K j 0,K + C

H 2 uH
j uj 0,,K j 0,,K

K
3

H uH
j uj 0,,K j 0,K

C (j 20, + j 20, + H 4 ) + j 20, .

Similarly to Tr2 , noting j W H and by Lemma 3.5, we get
Tr3

e,r |({g (uHj ) g (uj )}upw , [j ])(xr ) | +

|Ee ({g (uj )}upw [j ])|

5
j 0,e + j 0,e + H 2 [j ]0,e

C (j 20, + H 2 j 20, + j 20, + H 4 ) +

1
[j ]20,e .
|
e
|
e

And we use Lemma 3.4 to get

Tr4 =

EK (f j ) C

H 2 f 2,K j 1,K C (H 4 + j 20, ) + j |20, .

Combining all above terms and choosing proper , we obtain:

1

j 20, ).
(j 20, j1 20, ) + |||j |||20, C (H 4 + 2 + j 20, + j 20, + H 2 j 20, +

By Lemma 3.6, summing from j = 1 to j = n(M ) and using Gronwalls Inequality, we have that for any n M

n 20, +

(|||j |||2 ) C (H 4 + 2 ).

(3.12)

j =1

Finally, using triangle inequality and Lemma 3.6, we complete the proof.

4. Proof of Theorem 2.1

In order to prove Theorem 2.1, we firstly give out the following lemma on the modeling error of IPDGHMM (2.6)(2.10).
Lemma 4.1. Under the conditions of Theorem 2.1, in each cell I(x) , x = xl or xr , for s = Ujh (x), if a (s), g (s) are the homogenized
coefficients defined in (2.15) and (2.17) and the numerical homogenized coefficients ah (s), gh (s), a h (s), gh (s) are defined by (2.7)
(2.10), then the following error estimates hold

|aij (s) aij,h (s)| C (/ + (h/)2 ),

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361

|gi (s) gi,h (s)| C (/ + (h/)2 ),

|aij (s) a ij,h (s)| C (/ + (h/)2 ),
|gi (s) gi,h (s)| C (/ + (h/)2 ).
Proof. The first inequality can be found in [18] for a linear elliptic problem. In [2], the authors proved the first two
inequalities without concerning the numerical approximation to the local cell problem with fine scale mesh, i.e. h = 0.
The last one is totally new. We will prove it in the following.

|gi (s) gi,h (s)| |gi (s) gi (s)| + |gi (s) gi,h (s)| = E1 + E2 ,

(4.1)

here gi (s) is defined by

g (s) =

|I(xr ) |

a (x, s) R2 (UjH ) + g (x, s)dx,

I(xr )

with R2 (UjH ) being the exact solutions of local problem (2.12).

E1 can be bounded by a similar way in [12] as E1 C / . We only need to estimate the term E2 . From the local problem
(2.12), we may find that gh and g can be rewritten as:
gh (s) =
g (s) =

|I(xr ) |

a (x, s) h + g (x, s)dx,

I(xr )

|I(xr ) |

a (x, s) + g (x, s)dx,

I(xr )

where and h are the solution and its linear FEM approximation of the following problem respectively,

(a (x, s)) = g (x, s),

= 0,

in I(xr )
on I(xr ) .

(4.2)

Let pi , i = 1, 2 be the solution of the following problem

(a (x, s) pi ) = 0,
p i = xi ,

in I(xr )
on I(xr ) .

(4.3)

By (4.2) we get (refer to [28] Appendix)

||2,I(xr ) C ( g (x, s)0,I(xr ) + a (x, s) 0,I(xr ) )

(y g (y, s)0,I(xr ) + y a(y, s)0,I(xr ) ) C ,

(4.4)

where the regularity results of elliptic equation of second order have been used.
If we denote wi = pi xi , similarly to (4.4) we get

|wi |2,I(xr ) = |pi |2,I(xr )

y (a(y, s)ei )0,I(xr ) C .

By (4.2) and (4.3), we obtain

gi (s) =

=
gi,h (s) =

|I(xr ) | I (xr )
1

|I(xr ) |
1

|I(xr ) |

I (xr )

(g (x, s) + a (x, s)) ei dx

(g (x, s) + a (x, s)) pi dx,

I (xr )

(g (x, s) + a (x, s) h ) phi dx,

here phi is the linear FEM solution of (4.3). So we have

1
1

h
h

E2
g (x, s) (pi pi )dx +
a (x, s)( pi pi )dx = I1 + I2 .
|I(xr ) | I (xr )
|I(xr ) | I (xr )

(4.5)

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Again by problems (4.2) and (4.3), we observe from the Galerkin orthogonality of FEM [25] that

a (x, s)i (pi pi )dx

I1 =
|I(xr ) | I (xr )

=
a (x, s)(i ih ) (phi pi )dx
|I(xr ) | I (xr )
C

(ih i )L2 (I(xr ) ) (phi pi )L2 (I(xr ) )

|I(xr ) |
2
2
h
h
|i |2,I (xr ) |pi |2,I (xr ) C
,
C

where the last inequality is obtained by (4.4) and (4.5). Similarly

I2 = |

|I(xr ) |

I (xr )

a (x, s)(ih i ) (phi pi )dx| C

2
h

So we get E2 C ( h )2 . Combining E1 and E2 , we complete the proof by (4.1).

Proof of Theorem 2.1. Firstly split the error term

UjH

uj into two parts

H
UjH uj = (UjH uH
j ) + (uj uj ) = F1 + F2 ,

(4.6)

where uH
j is the solution of (3.1). The second term F2 has been bounded in Theorem 3.8. So we only need to deal with F1 .
Subtract (3.1) from (2.6) to get:

UjH UjH1

H
uH
j uj 1

H
H
,
+
AH ,K (UjH ; UjH , H ) AH ,K (uH
j ; uj , )

K
K

H
H
H
H
H
H
H

+
se ([UjH uH
A
(
],
[
])
=
H ,e Uj ; Uj , ) A H ,e (uj ; uj , )
e
j
+

e
e

H ,e (UjH ); H G H ,e (uHj ; H ) .
(GH ,K (uHj ; H ) GH ,K (UjH ; H )) +
G

(4.7)

Set
LHS = Tl1 + Tl2 + Tl3
Denoting by j =

UjH

uH
j

j j1

Tl1 =

RHS = Tr1 + Tr2 + Tr3 .

and

and setting H = j in (4.7), we get that

, j

(j 2L2 ( ) j1 2L2 ( ) ).

By (2.7)(2.10) and (3.2)(3.5) we have

Tl2 =

K ,l (ah (UjH ) UjH j ah (UjH ) uHj j )(xl )

+
K ,l (ah (UjH ) uHj j a (uHj ) uHj j )(xl ) = I3 + I4 .
K ,l

K ,l

From Lemma 3.2, we obtain

I3 Cl2

j 20,K .

Rewrite I4 as
I4 =

K ,l (ah (UjH ) a (uHj ))(xl )(uHj Zj )(xl ) j (xl ) +

K ,l

K ,l (ah (UjH ) a (uHj ))(xl ) Zj (xl ) j (xl ).

K ,l

Using Lemma 4.1, (3.12), inverse inequality and noticing that K ,l CH 2 , we obtain

Cl2

+ C Zj 0,
K ,l
K ,l

2 h 4
Cl2
C 2 + H4 +
+
+
j 20,K +
j 20,K ,

8
K
K

I4

uH
j

C (

Zj )

2
0,K

16

2
j 0 ,K

2
h

+ |j | (xl ) |j |(xl )

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363

where we have used that the boundedness of ah (UjH ) and a (uH

j ). So we have
Tl2

7Cl2
8

C + H + (h/) + (/) +

2
j 0 ,K

2
j 0,K

The term Tl3 is exactly

Tl3 =

ce
[j ]20,e .
|e|
e

For the first term at the right hand side, similarly to Tl2 and noting that e,r = |e| CH and uH
j 0, C , we get

e,r {ah (UjH ) UjH a (uHj ) uHj }(xr ) [j ](xr )

e,r

1
2
4
4
2
2
C + H + (h/) + (/) +
j 0,K +
[j ]20,e .
C |e|
e
K

Tr1 =

Choosing constant C properly small, we get

Tr1

Cl2
4

2
j 0,K

1
2
+ C + H + (h/) + (/) +
[j ]0,e .
|e|
e
2

Similarly to Tr1 , terms Tr2 and Tr3 can be easily bounded by

Tr2

Cl2
8

2
j 0,K

+ C (h/) + (/) +
4

2
j 0,K

Tr3 C

(h/)4 + (/)2 +

j2 0,K +

1
[j ]20,e .
|
e
|
e

Choosing ce sufficiently large and combining all the above terms on both sides of (4.7), we have
1

(j 2L2 ( ) j1 2L2 ( ) ) + j 20,

4
1
2

h
[j ]20,e C 2 + H 4 +
+
+ j 20, .
+
|e|

Summing over j = 1, . . . , M, we get from Gronwalls Inequality that for any 1 N M

UNH uHN L2 ( ) +

1/2
|||UjH uHj |||2

C + H2 +

2
h

Combining with Theorem 3.8 and (4.6), we finish the proof of Theorem 2.1.
5. Numerical examples
In this section, we present some numerical examples for two popular models of Richards equation. One is the Gardener
model [3] and the other is van GenuchtenMualem model [4]. Numerical examples are carried out both for periodic and
random log-normal permeabilities to demonstrate the ability of the IPDGHMM developed in Section 2. To get the real
numerical solution, i.e. to implement the scheme, we have to appeal to some iteration method. In this section, we apply the
simple iteration to linearize the nonlinear problem.
5.1. Gardener model
Consider the following Richards equation

t (u) (K (x, u)(u + x3 )) = 0

u = 0
u = 10

K (x, u)(u + x3 ) n = 0
u(x, 0) = 10

in [0, 1]2 (0, T ),

on t = {x1 (0, 1), x3 = 1},
on b = {x1 (0, 1), x3 = 0},
on lr = {x1 = 0, 1; x3 (0, 1)},
in [0, 1]2

(5.1)

where x3 denotes the vertical coordinate in the medium, is water volume content and u is pressure. By the GardnerBasha
Model (see [2,3] for details), we have (u) = (s)e u , K (x, u) = Ks (x)e(x)u . We set the parameter (s) = 1, = 0.1. The
heterogeneity comes from absolute permeability Ks (x) and (x).

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Fig. 2. The contour plots of 0 (solid line) and h (dash line) in grid 8 8 at t = 1 (left) and t = 10 (right).

Fig. 3. The contour plots of 0 (solid line) and h (dash line) in grid 16 16 at t = 1 (left) and t = 10 (right).

5.1.1. Gardener model with periodic coefficients

In the periodic case, we assume that Ks (x) and (x) in (5.1) have the following periodic form
Ks (x1 , x3 ) = 1/[2 + 1.8 sin(2 (2x3 x1 )/)]/117.4

s (x1 , x3 ) = 1/[2 + 1.8 sin(2 (2x3 x1 )/)]/11.74

here we fixed = 1/256.
Notice that we will solve Eq. (5.1) numerically for by the IPDGHMM (2.6)(2.10). The IPDGHMM solution h will be
obtained over macro-scale grid of 8 8, 16 16 and 32 32 respectively. For each local sample cell I , we choose = 4
and solve the micro problems (2.11) and (2.12) on a grid with size of /16. We compare the numerical solution h with the
homogenized equations (2.14) solution 0 , which is also obtained numerically on a 256 256 grid. The time step is chosen
to be = 1/1000 for all computations in this subsection. In Figs. 24, the contour plots of water volume content 0 and h
at time t = 1 and t = 10 are depicted for different cases.
5.1.2. Gardener model with random coefficients
In this subsection we consider the applications of IPDGHMM to Richards equation (5.1) with randomly generated lognormal permeability coefficients Ks and instead of the periodic settings in the last subsection. The random log-normal
permeability fields Ks (x) are generated over 1024 1024 grid by the moving ellipse average technique [29] and is set to
be (x) = 5Ks (x).
We will consider two situations: isotropic case and anisotropic case. For the isotropic case, the corresponding normal
distribution of log(Ks ) is N (4, 0.8) and the correlation lengths are l1 = l3 = 0.01 in x1 and x3 directions. One realization of
the log-normal permeability field Ks in our numerical experiment is depicted in Fig. 5, the ratio of maximum to minimum
is 0.175957E + 04. For the anisotropic case, the corresponding normal distribution of log(Ks ) is also N (4, 0.8) but the
correlation lengths are l1 = 0.05 and l3 = 0.01. One realization of the log-normal permeability field Ks is depicted in Fig. 8,
the ratio of maximum to minimum is 0.753478E + 04.
In both cases, the solutions of IPDGHMM h are obtained over macro-scale grid of 32 32. For each local sample cell I ,
we choose = 1/64 and solve the micro problems (2.11) and (2.12) on a grid with size of /16. At the same time, we also

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365

Fig. 4. The contour plots of 0 (solid line) and h (dash line) in grid 32 32 at t = 1 (left) and t = 10 (right).

Fig. 5. The random log-normal permeability field Ks (x), l1 = l3 = 0.01, = 0.8.

Fig. 6. The contour plot of (left) and h (right) at time t = 1, l1 = l3 = 0.01, = 0.8.

solve (5.1) over fine-scale grid of 1024 1024 to get fine scale solution , and, we compare the IPDGHMM solution h
with the solution . The water volume contents h and are shown by contour plots at time t = 1 and t = 8 in Figs. 67
for the isotropic heterogeneity, and in Figs. 910 for the anisotropic heterogeneity case. Fig. 11 is to show IPDGHMM
solution h and fine scale solution along the cross-section x1 = 0.5 for isotropic case (left) and anisotropic case (right)
respectively.

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Fig. 7. The contour plot of (left) and h (right) at time t = 8, l1 = l3 = 0.01, = 0.8.

Fig. 8. The random log-normal permeability field Ks (x), l1 = 0.05, l3 = 0.01, = 0.8.

Fig. 9. The contour plots of (left) and h (right) at time t = 1, l1 = 0.05 l3 = 0.01, = 0.8.

5.2. Van GenuchtenMualem model

In this subsection, we consider the Richards equation under the van GenuchtenMualem model [4]

t (D(x, ) + (K (x, ) ex3 )) = 0

= s

= r

D(x, ) + k(x, )ex3 ) n = 0

(x, 0) = r

in [0, 1]2 (0, T ),

on t = {x1 (0, 1), x3 = 1},
on b = {x1 (0, 1), x3 = 0},
on lr = {x1 = 0, 1; x3 (0, 1)},
in [0, 1]2 ,

(5.2)

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367

Fig. 10. The contour plots of (left) and h (right) at time t = 8, l1 = 0.05 l3 = 0.01, = 0.8.

Fig. 11. h (star) is compared with (solid line) along the cross-section x1 = 0.5 for isotropic case (left) and anisotropic case (right) respectively.

here the constitutive relations are

(u) = r + (s r )(1 + s |u|n )m ,

K (x, ) = Ks (x1 , x3 )1/2 (1 (1 1/m )m )2 ,

m
(1 m)Ks (x1 , x3 ) 1 m
1
1
m
m
m
2
D(x, ) =

1
+ (1 ) 2 ,
s m(s r )
r
and Ks , s , m, n are the media parameters. Throughout this subsection, we set m = 0.5, n = 2, r = 0.05,
where =
s r
s = 0.489. The heterogeneity comes from absolute permeability Ks (x) and (x).
Notice that the Richards equation under the van GenuchtenMualem model (5.2) is degenerated at = r (D = 0) and
= s (D = +) and sharp interface would be developed between saturated and unsaturated regions. Our IPDGHMM
scheme can be also used to treat this kind of problems.
In our computation, in order to avoid the difficulty of degeneration, the coefficient D(x, ) is replaced by a regularized
one as

D(x, ())
D(x, (0.001))
D(x, (0.999))

(x, ) =
D

[0.001, 0.999],
[0, 0.001),
(0.999, 1],

where () = (s r ) + r .
5.2.1. Van GenuchtenMualem model with periodic coefficients
For periodic case, we set
Ks (x1 , x3 ) = 1/[2 + 1.8 sin(2 (2x3 x1 )/)]/117.4

s (x1 , x3 ) = 1/[2 + 1.5 sin(2 (2x3 x1 )/)]/7.6.

In our simulation, is chosen to be 1/256.

(5.3)

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Fig. 12. The IPDGHMM solution (star) compared with fine-scale solution (solid line) along the cross-section x1 = 0.5 for periodic case (left) and random
case (isotropic) (right) respectively.

The numerical solution of IPDGHMM is obtained on a macro-scale grid 32 32. For each local sample cell I , we choose
= 4 and solve the micro problems (2.11) and (2.12) on a grid with size of /16. We compare the IPDGHMM solution
with the fine-scale solution which is obtained on a grid 4096 4096 by FVM. The time step is also chosen to be = 1/1000
in this subsection. We compare the IPDGHMM solution with the fine-scale solution along the cross-section of x1 = 0.5
(Fig. 12 left).
5.2.2. Van GenuchtenMualem model with random coefficients
For the random model, we only consider the isotropic heterogeneities case. We generate the random log-normal
permeability fields Ks (x) and (x) by the same methods used in Section 5.1. The corresponding normal distribution of log(Ks )
is N (3, 0.8) and the corresponding normal distribution of log(s ) is N (2, 0.8). The correlation lengths of both ks and s
are l1 = l3 = 0.01 in x1 and x3 directions. The solution of IPDGHMM is obtained on a macro-scale grid 32 32. For each
local sample cell I , we choose = 1/64 and solve the micro problems (2.11) and (2.12) on a grid with size of /16. We
compare the IPDGHMM solution with the fine-scale solution which is obtained by solving (5.2) on a grid 1024 1024 by
FVM. We compare the IPDGHMM solution with the fine-scale solution along the cross-section x1 = 0.5 (Fig. 12 right).
6. Conclusion
In this article, we have proposed a fully discrete IPDGHMM for Richards equation. The proposed method significantly
reduces the cost and inherits the advantage of DG method. Under periodic case, we derive some error estimates for the fully
discrete scheme. The method is convenient and economical for practice. To confirm the efficiency of this numerical method,
we have performed several numerical experiments and the results are in good agreement with the fine scale prediction on
macroscopic.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under the Grant 11271281 and
by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2013B10114).
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