FIELD AND LABORATORY ANALYSIS OF WATER WELL DESIGN PARAMETERS

PhD Oral Defense by:Christopher Harich
Graduate StudentAbstract:
It is the goal of this research to establish fundamental principles of water well design. These principles have developed critical water well design parameters for four different types of aquifers; very coarse, coarse, medium and fine grained according to the Wentworth classification. With extensive laboratory testing utilizing the world's largest sand-tank well/aquifer model at the University of Southern California's Geohydrology Laboratory and field data from over 100 wells accompanied by 400 aquifer sieves, this research has developed a standard by which water wells can be designed.
The design of efficient water wells requires knowledge of various hydraulic factors that affect the major drawdown components of a well. The Step Drawdown Method has been shown to be a valid more robust method for the determination of water well efficiency. This method determines more head loss terms then the Conventional Method for calculating well efficiency and thus determines all of the aquifer and well loss terms for a particular well. The demarcation of the transitional state of laminar to turbulent flow is well defined by the method of critical radius and presented herein. Five types of initial well developments are discussed and are critical to decreasing the critical radius over a well's operational pumping rate. Minimizing these turbulent flow losses can result in substantial cost savings over the lifetime of the well.
This research has will aid engineers in developing more efficient water wells in various geohydrological settings. Its goal is to provide the largest production of water while maintaining the lowest operational costs for the well owners. This paper will design wells that are simple and strong while protecting our water resources.

Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Evangeline Reyes