Modeling of Free Surface in Steady-State Radial Seepage

Abstract

The free surface occurs as one of the boundaries in all unconfined ground-water flow problems. Determination of the free surface has received considerable attention in the literature. For computing free surface, models have been either developed neglecting the vertical velocity or including the effect of vertical velocity. However, it is found that in certain situations, none of these models are able to simulate the steady-state free surface profiles. With this in view, a new model based on the considerations of vertical velocity is proposed to analyze the free surface in case of steady-state radial seepage. It is found that the existing models of computing free surface are the particular cases of the present model. Also, the computed free surface profiles using the present model are found to match well with the observed profiles. Thus, the present model can be used to represent steady-state free surface profiles.