An element for modeling potential channel flows between impervious underground structures in an urban regional groundwater flow field

In an urban regional groundwater flow field, the presence of thousands of channels between impervious structures makes the field difficult to simulate using the finite-element method (FEM), because the scale of the field is usually several orders of magnitude larger than that of the channels. To overcome this problem, a simple element for the simulation of potential channel flows has been developed. This element works with linear triangular elements and can be easily implemented in a finite-element code to simulate the channel flows with a sparse mesh without a loss of global accuracy. The transmissivity matrix of this element is deduced from the analytical solution for channel flow. The application of the element is discussed, and the accuracy of the element is assessed. The element makes it easy to merge small structures that are close to each other into a larger one that can be modeled with a sparse mesh.