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A note on the meaning of storage coefficient
Author(s) -
Narasimhan T. N.,
Kanehiro B. Y.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/wr016i002p00423
Subject(s) - hydrogeology , porous medium , compressibility , specific storage , flow (mathematics) , mechanics , hydraulic head , petroleum engineering , transient (computer programming) , porosity , geotechnical engineering , mathematics , computer science , geology , physics , aquifer , groundwater recharge , groundwater , operating system
The term storage coefficient and the related expressions, storativity, specific storage, and total compressibility, are frequently used in hydrogeology, petroleum engineering, and other fields. These parameters seek to express the quantity of water required to be added to or removed from storage in order to change (under conditions of drainage) the average hydraulic head or pore pressure of a porous material by a given amount. Originally introduced over 4 decades ago, the storage parameter is still used by many in the restricted sense of a coefficient occurring in the partial differential equation describing fully saturated flow. However, with the significant increase in our computational abilities using powerful numerical integration techniques, there presently exists a need to have a more fundamental appreciation of the storage parameter as it relates to transient fluid flow in porous media. Such a fundamental approach requires consideration of the type of loading to which the porous medium is subject as well as certain conventions followed by various workers in actually defining the parameter. While no new derivations or results are presented, this paper attempts to assemble in a single place the various ideas relevant to the storage parameter in order to obtain a generalized perspective.