Dupuit–Forchheimer assumption

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The Dupuit–Forchheimer assumption holds that groundwater flows horizontally in an unconfined aquifer and that the groundwater discharge is proportional to the saturated aquifer thickness. It was formulated by Jules Dupuit and Philipp Forchheimer in the late 1800s to simplify groundwater flow equations for analytical solutions.

Groundwater water located beneath the ground surface

Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock become completely saturated with water is called the water table. Groundwater is recharged from and eventually flows to the surface naturally; natural discharge often occurs at springs and seeps, and can form oases or wetlands. Groundwater is also often withdrawn for agricultural, municipal, and industrial use by constructing and operating extraction wells. The study of the distribution and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology, also called groundwater hydrology.

Groundwater discharge is the volumetric flow rate of groundwater through an aquifer.

Aquifer Underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock

An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock, rock fractures or unconsolidated materials. Groundwater can be extracted using a water well. The study of water flow in aquifers and the characterization of aquifers is called hydrogeology. Related terms include aquitard, which is a bed of low permeability along an aquifer, and aquiclude, which is a solid, impermeable area underlying or overlying an aquifer. If the impermeable area overlies the aquifer, pressure could cause it to become a confined aquifer.

The Dupuit–Forchheimer assumption requires that the water table be relatively flat and that the groundwater be hydrostatic (that is, that the equipotential lines are vertical):

Water table top of a saturated aquifer, or where the water pressure head is equal to the atmospheric pressure

The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water.

Equipotential

Equipotential or isopotential in mathematics and physics refers to a region in space where every point in it is at the same potential. This usually refers to a scalar potential, although it can also be applied to vector potentials. An equipotential of a scalar potential function in n-dimensional space is typically an (n−1)dimensional space. The del operator illustrates the relationship between a vector field and its associated scalar potential field. An equipotential region might be referred as being 'of equipotential' or simply be called 'an equipotential'.

where is the vertical pressure gradient, is the specific weight, is the density of water, is the standard gravity, and is the vertical hydraulic gradient.

The specific weight is the weight per unit volume of a material. The symbol of specific weight is γ.

The standard acceleration due to gravity, sometimes abbreviated as standard gravity, usually denoted by ɡ0 or ɡn, is the nominal gravitational acceleration of an object in a vacuum near the surface of the Earth. It is defined by standard as 9.80665 m/s2. This value was established by the 3rd CGPM and used to define the standard weight of an object as the product of its mass and this nominal acceleration. The acceleration of a body near the surface of the Earth is due to the combined effects of gravity and centrifugal acceleration from the rotation of the Earth ; the total is about 0.5% greater at the poles than at the Equator.

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References

Jules Dupuit French economist and civil engineer

Arsène Jules Étienne Juvenel Dupuit was an Italian-born French civil engineer and economist.

Philipp Forchheimer was an Austrian engineer, a pioneer in the field of civil engineering and practical hydraulics. He was professor in Istanbul, Aachen and Graz.