10.5 GROUNDWATER FLOW AND CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT MODELLING
10.5.1 Introduction
For groundwater problems, either the weighted residual or variational approach (Sun, 1996) are often used in conjunction with FEM. As FEM uses concept of ‘piecewise approximation’, domain of the problem (the extent of the porous media to be simulated) is divided into a set of elements or pieces. Elements can be of different shapes and sizes in FEM. Point values of the dependent variable (e.g., head, or concentration) are calculated at nodes, which are corners or vertices of elements, and a basis function is used to describe value of the dependent variable within an element (Segerlind, 1985). Linear functions are generally used in modelling of porous media. Solution ...
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