Groundwater flow near a recirculation well with mixed-type boundary condition along wellbore in confined, unconfined, leaky, or reservoir-covered aquifers.
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APTIM Authors/Contributors
- Tomas Perina, Project Manager, Environmental Services
Abstract
Vertical recirculation wells used for remediation or heat recovery induce drawdown distribution that varies for confined, unconfined, leaky, and reservoir-covered aquifers. A recirculation well with arbitrary arrangement of extraction and injection screen intervals is simulated with the general well function of Perina and Lee (2006) and Perina (2014) after a minor modification. Distribution of radial flux along the screen intervals is determined as part of the solution for the mixed boundary condition along the well-aquifer interface. Drawdown distribution reaches steady state, with the transient period lasting over one year for unconfined aquifer and less than one hour for the other three aquifer types in the example considered. The drawdown distribution varies by aquifer type and shows sensitivity to aquifer hydraulic properties and well construction, suggesting that a recirculation well offers an effective and economical alternative to pumping tests for characterization of aquifer hydraulic properties.
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