Gravity Fingering Impact on Evaporation and Drainage in a 3D Porous Medium

Rebecca Liyanage from MIT conducted an experimental study on the impact of gravity fingering on deep drainage coupled with surface evaporation in a 3D porous medium. The dataset includes observations of the onset time of gravity fingers, their size, the volume of water injected over time, and the accumulation rate within the system. Experiments varied rainfall event volume and interval to replicate climate conditions using a cylindrical vessel packed with dry glass beads.

Use Cases

• Modeling the onset and growth of gravity fingers based on recorded onset times and finger sizes.
• Analyzing water partitioning between evaporation and deep drainage based on system mass measurements.
• Simulating the impact of rainfall event volume and interval on drainage dynamics.
• Calibrating numerical models of unsaturated flow in porous media using time-series injection volume data.

Strengths

• Data originates from a controlled laboratory experiment at MIT, providing a clean physical basis.
• The description specifies multiple measured variables: onset time, finger size, water volume over time, and accumulation rate.
• Experimental design varied key climate-condition parameters: rainfall event volume and interval.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Collection Method

Laboratory experiment using a cylindrical vessel packed with dry glass beads, with controlled water injection and mass recording.