Hydraulics of a partially penetrating well with skin zone in a confined aquifer

Abstract: A steady/quasi-steady model is developed for predicting flow into a partially penetrating well with skin zone in a confined aquifer overlying an impervious layer. The model takes into account flow through the bottom of the wellbore, finite skin thickness and finite horizontal and vertical extent of the aquifer. Moreover, the solution can be easily extended to include the mixed-type boundary condition at the well face, where a Dirichlet in the form of a specified hydraulic head and a Neumann in the form of zero flux coexist at the same time at different portions of the well face. The validity of the proposed solution is tested by comparing a few results obtained from the developed model with corresponding results obtained by analytical and numerical means. The study shows that, among other factors remaining constant, both the horizontal and vertical extent of an artesian aquifer, thickness of the skin zone, bottom flow and conductivity contrast of the skin and formation zones, play an important part in deciding flow to a well dug in the aquifer, and hence these factors must be considered while analyzing the problem. The model proposed here can be used to estimate skin thickness as well as hydraulic conductivities of the skin and formation zones of a well with skin zone in an artesian aquifer underlain by an impervious layer by utilizing pumping test data falling in the steady or quasi-steady state of a typical pumping test. As the proposed solution is of a general nature in the sense that it can handle, apart from partial penetration and bottom flow, the finite size skin zone and finite horizontal and vertical extent of an artesian aquifer together with the mixed-type boundary condition at the well face, it is hoped that the predictions coming out of the model will be more realistic than those obtained using solutions developed with more stringent assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]