Impact of Boundary Conditions on Pumping in a Fully Bounded Aquifer

Abstract:

The flow field may be affected by aquifer boundaries, when pumping in a small-scale aquifer or a long term pumping activity is required especially under a large pumping rate. Using potential theory, the image-well method and superposition principle, analytical solutions are derived for pumping in a fully bounded rectangular aquifer with five different boundary condition scenarios: (1) one constant-head boundary (in horizontal direction in plan view) and three impermeable boundaries, (2) two parallel constant-head boundaries (in horizontal direction) and two parallel impermeable boundaries (in vertical direction), (3) two pairs of orthogonal impermeable and constant-head boundaries, (4) three constant-head boundaries and one impermeable boundary, and (5) four constant-head boundaries. For each scenario, closed-form expressions are derived in three different types: (1) summation of the series in horizontal and vertical directions; (2) summation of the series in horizontal direction and exact potential in vertical direction, and (3) summation of the series in vertical direction and exact potential in horizontal direction. It is found that all the three types of closed-form expressions can produce an accurate potential for scenarios (3)-(5). For scenarios (1) and (2), by contrast, the third type closed-form expression can yield an accurate solution, while the second type close-form expression always generates an unacceptable solution. Therefore, the third type closed-form is recommended to solve the potential of a flow field created by a pumping well subjected to multiple impermeable and/or constant-head boundary conditions, due to its accuracy as well as computational efficiency.