• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.607-616
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• 1999

A fractional step finite difference model for the longitudinal dispersion of nonconservative contaminants is developed. It is based on splitting the longitudinal dispersion equation into a set of three equations each to be solved over a one-third time step. The fourth-order Holly-Preissmann scheme, an analytic solution, and the Crank-Nicholson scheme are used to solve the equations for the pure advection, the first-order decay, and the diffusion, respectively. To test the model, it is applied to simulate the longitudinal dispersion of continuous source released into a nonuniform flow field as well as the dispersion of an instantaneous source in a uniform flow field. The results are compared with the exact solution and those computed by an existing model. Compared to the existing model which uses Euler method for the first-order decay equation, the present model yield more accurate results as the decay coefficient increases.