Effect of unsaturated flow on steady seepage

Steady seepage in two-dimensional domains is investigated using a dimensionless formulation for variably-saturated media that depends on three dimensionless parameters, M, n, and α. The parameter M is the product of the anisotropy ratio and the squared ratio of the vertical length scale to the horizontal length scale. The parameter n increases with the uniformity of the pore sizes, and α represents the ratio of the domain height to the height of the capillary fringe. For trapezoidal domains, the seepage face height decreased first with decreasing M and increased later at low values of M. The effect of α was maximal at extreme M values, while the effect of n was minor for all (M, α) values. Guidelines for scaling physical systems are provided.