Evaporation and multi-step unit gradient virtual experiments for 3d geometries of stony soils with different volumes of rock fragments

Abstract: We applied numerical simulations to identify the effective hydraulic properties of stony soils (SHP), i.e. the water retention curve (WRC) and hydraulic conductivity curve (HCC). The Hydrus 2D/3D software was used to create virtual stony soils in 3D and simulate water flow for different volumetric fractions of rock fragments (RFs). Stony soils with different values of RFs (11, 19.8, 28.5 and 37 %) were created by placing impermeable spheres as RFs in a sandy loam soil. Time series of local pressure heads in various depths, mean water contents, and fluxes across the upper boundary were generated in a virtual evaporation experiment. Additionally, a multi-step unit gradient simulation was applied to determine effective values of hydraulic conductivity near saturation up to pF=2. The virtual evaporation and multi-step unit gradient experiments to generate the data from 3D stony soil geometries are presented for the stony soils with different volumetric RFs. The nametags of the files include the number of embedded spheres (15, 27, 39, and 51) to create the corresponding volumetric RFs (11, 19.8, 28.5 and 37 %) and the type of virtual experiment: evap (Evaporation) or unit (multi-step unit gradient).