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Pseudopotential functions in construction of flow nets for contaminant transport modeling
Author(s) -
Matanga George B.
Publication year - 1988
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/wr024i004p00553
Subject(s) - streamlines, streaklines, and pathlines , porous medium , flow (mathematics) , pseudopotential , isotropy , orthogonality , mechanics , hydraulic head , hydrogeology , geometry , physics , geotechnical engineering , geology , mathematics , porosity , condensed matter physics , optics
Construction of flow nets in most hydrogeologic field problems is complicated by nonexistence of orthogonality between streamlines and hydraulic head lines in anisotropic porous media. The nonexistence of orthogonality can be circumvented by transformation of the anisotropic porous medium into an isotropic one. Flow nets are valuable in generation of a numerical solution grid for a contaminant transport equation formulated along the direction of flow and the direction orthogonal to flow. Effect of flow domain transformation on contaminant transport simulation is not known. The flow domain transformation can be avoided by constructing flow nets with streamlines and pseudopotential lines. The pseudopotential lines are based on the theory of pseudopotential function. A discussion of the theory in isotropic porous media exists in literature. To my knowledge, this is the first time that the theory is being extended to anisotropic porous media. An integration procedure is used to evaluate values of pseudopotential function and hydraulic head along a streamline. A comparison of flow nets based on pseudopotential lines and hydraulic head lines indicates that pseudopotential lines are more useful than hydraulic head lines in simulation of contaminant transport in saturated groundwater flow systems.