SVFlux and ChemFlux - Ngwa.org
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1. Aquifer Test Analysis Principles of Pumping Test Design and Techniques for Data Analysis gt Waterloo Canada July 13 14 2005 modeling technologies with Waterloo Canada Feb 1 4 2005 Vancouver Canada March 8 11 2005 P Waterloo Canada May 31 June 3 2005 I found the course very informative The detail in the course studies was more than expected and very useful Australia John Leonard waterloo gt hydrogeologic SOFTWARE CONSULTING TRAINING practical applications MOM THNSLA SNISN Register today and gain recognition and GIS Data Management for Groundwater Modelers Understanding Data Sources Data Analysis and Visualization P Waterloo Canada Mar 29 April 1 2005 expertise Register Now Phone 519 746 1798 E mail training waterloohydrogeologic com For details visit www waterloohydrogeologic com training htm Vol 42 No 6 GROUND WATER November December 2004 807 included in axis labels The reviewers would also like better guidance on how to set the parameters for the finite element method so that transient simulations do not run with tiny time steps thus taking a long time to complete Overall SVFlux and ChemFlux do a good job of providing a front end GUI to the underlying finite element solver Flex PDE The procedure for creating a project and specifying a problem is straightforward Automatic mesh generation and refinement are impressiv2. This would specify the head to increase linearly from 50 at t O to 60 at t 10 and then remain at 60 afterwards A very nice feature was the ability to fit a number of empirical equations such as van Genuchten and Maulem to laboratory data of suction vs water content or hydraulic conductivity All the soil properties go into a database which makes it easy to use the soil properties entered from another problem Another nice feature was the ability to compute volumetric flow across a user specified line in a two dimensional model or a plane in a three dimensional model The material in the manuals is quite informative users can quickly get up to speed by reading through one of the many tutorials provided In addition to the tutorials there is 1 a user s manual which describes the use of each pro gram in detail 2 a theory manual which describes the mathematics of the physical processes modeled by the pro gram and 3 a verification manual which compares each software package against established counterparts SV Flux is compared with Seep W and ChemFlux is compared with MODFLOW MT3DMS and CTRAN W What We Did Not Like One reviewer was quite frustrated when initially learn ing to use the software due to program quirks and outdated documentation Once the reviewer learned the program idiosyncrasies and various workarounds he began to appre ciate the power of the software Learning to use the soft ware would be sub
3. backend database and solver and visualizer executables This proce dure was slightly problematic in that the program would report a successful setup even if an incorrect e g notepad exe instead of FlexPDE3 exe or nonexistent file was specified What We Found The software essentially provides a CAD like front end graphical user interface GUI for FlexPDE a partial differential equation solver using the finite element method Figure 1 The software appeared stable although a nonfa tal divide by zero error was sometimes reported when the program either SVFlux or ChemFlux was opened via the start menu Users go through a process of project creation where organizational details like who where and when are entered followed by problem selection two or three dimensional steady state or transient etc and problem definition In the problem definition phase the user adds soils and materials using a soil manager dialog Then the user specifies the geometry of individual soil material objects using the CAD style interface Next boundary con ditions and flux output areas are specified Finally the user selects from different types of output e g pressure head concentration contours and then runs the solver Overall the GUI works well and is fairly intuitive 804 Vol 42 No 6 GROUND WATER November December 2004 Understanding aquifer properties through logging Expect more from your geophysical logs Parti
4. ally open fractures lra Vietor y E OR AT aa HEARS ea it gi 22 Se G2 Secondary Very long T2 decay times porosity due to the fracture network i 4 we Ee LA LE ee 3 bi i iy E et 4 j 3 F w Why settle for only qualitative information about important aquifer and ground water properties from conventional geophysical logs Advanced geophysical measurements like borehole magnetic resonance CMR high resolution resistivity imaging FMI and multi component sonic imaging DSI provide accurate high resolution logs of formation and groundwater properties not possible using conventional logs alone State of the art technologies for geophysical and hydrogeologic data integration are used to compute reliable quantitative estimates of aquifer properties such as hydraulic conductivity effective porosity salinity and rock compressibility while minimizing your reliance on costly coring sampling and testing programs Schlumberger offers a wide array of advanced logging and interpretation services that are customized for site specific geology well conditions and project needs Let Schlumberger help you to optimize your data collection program and eliminate the guesswork in aquifer characterization and well design Contact us at waterservices slb com to discuss your needs Water Services www slb com waterservices Schlumberger Vol 42 No 6 GROUND WATER Nove
5. e The SVFlux ChemFlux Flex PDE programs should be very useful for modeling flow and transport under variably saturated conditions It is apparent that the developers put a lot of thought and effort into build ing the software to meet a wide variety of user needs Rankings The reviewers ranked the software s capability relia bility ease of use and technical support on a scale of 1 worst to 5 best The following rankings are the average of three sets of scores from both reviewers and the editor Capability a Reliability 4 0 Ease of use 4 0 Technical support 5 0 m Peace of Mind and No Surprises Consistent amp Predictable Performance Safe amp Easy to Use Friendly amp Experienced Technical Support Ready When You Are Fixed Price Quotes Verification of Success Using Patented Molecular Technology How to Obtain the Software For more information on how to purchase SVFlux and ChemFlux visit the Web site of SoilVision Systems at www soilvision com The company is located at 2109 McK innon Ave S Saskatoon SK Canada S7J 1N3 306 477 3324 fax 306 955 4575 The commercial price for three dimensional versions of SVFlux and ChemFlux is 5995 with a 25 educational discount A student edition limited to 800 nodes is available at no cost Our Mission The goal of Software Spotlight is to help readers identify well written intuitive and useful software Inde pendent
6. er December 2004
7. ground water Software Spotlight Chunmiao Zheng Software Editor ee ae SVFlux and ChemFlux Software for Two Dimensional Three Dimensional Finite Element Variably Saturated Flow and Transport Modeling reviewed by Paul A Hsieh and Shawn M atott Introduction SVFlux and ChemFlux are a pair of finite element models designed to simulate the movement of water and contaminants in two and three dimensions under variably saturated conditions The transport simulator ChemFlux is designed as a companion to the flow simulator SVFlux SVFlux and ChemFlux are commercial products developed by SoilVision Systems Ltd and can be purchased via the company s Web site SVFlux and ChemFlux run under Microsoft Windows NT 2000 XP operating systems and require a minimum of 128 MB RAM and approximately 150 MB hard drive space The software includes Windows based graphical user interface numerical model engines and post process ing programs SVFlux and ChemFlux are suitable for numerous applications such as modeling of water and trans port modeling in aquifers and the unsaturated zone model ing of seepage across dams and geomembranes and modeling of infiltration excess pore water buildup and dis sipation This article is based on two independent reviews of SVFlux versions 4 05 and 5 04 and ChemFlux ver sions 3 00 and 3 03 How We Tested The reviewed software was installed on two platforms a desktop PC equipped with dual Pent
8. ion s own three dimensional visualization program For three dimensional problems this is almost essential but requires the additional graphics software Documentation user s manual tutorial manual etc were provided in three ring binders and also available in the form of Adobe Acrobat PDF files Unfortunately at the time of the software review the vendor had just released SVFlux version 5 but the documentation was still for ver sion 4 Some of the new features or parameter requirements were not described in the documentation Although the user s manual was quite lengthy 230 pages it did not cover all the details Consequently although the reviewers 806 Vol 42 No 6 GROUND WATER November December 2004 were able to get a good overall knowledge of how the pro gram works there were occasions when one reviewer could not find the necessary information and was unable to pro ceed until he got an e mail response from the vendor s sup port staff What We Liked The finite element solver automatically generates the mesh and refines it during the simulation This is probably the biggest strength of the software A problem can be set up quickly by drawing regions and assigning soil properties to regions Reviewers like the ability to specify boundary conditions using the equation builder For example the user can specify the head along a boundary by something such as if t lt 10 then 50 0 1 t else 60
9. ium 4 2 Ghz proces sors and 512 MB RAM running Windows 2000 Profes sional and a laptop PC equipped with a Pentium M 1 4 Ghz processor and 512 MB RAM running Windows XP Profes sional One reviewer used the setup programs for SVFlux 1U S Geological Survey 345 Middlefield Rd Mail Stop 496 Menlo Park CA 94025 pahsieh usgs gov 2Department of Civil Structural and Environmental Engineer ing State University of New York at Buffalo 207 Jarvis Hall Buf falo NY 14260 4300 Ismatott buffalo edu Copyright 2004 by the National Ground Water Association and ChemFlux along with their companion solver package FlexPDE provided on the distribution CD the other reviewer downloaded the software from SoilVision s Web site Installation went smoothly without incident and took an average of less than 10 minutes Disk usage was 78 MB for SVFlux 70 MB for ChemFlux and 6 MB for FlexPDE After installation a license for each program must be obtained by filling out a request form at SoilVision s Web site A license file is then received by e mail enabling the user to run the software on a specific computer The installation of VisioPlot a post processing two dimensional visualization program also available from SoilVision required an update to the Microsoft NET Framework For both SVFlux and ChemFlux there is a sec ond installation step that occurs when the program is run for the first time At this point the user must specify a
10. les steady state flow results from SVFlux For the most part the solver worked quite impres sively However one reviewer encountered cases where the solver took very small time steps in a transient run thus requiring a very long computation time The reviewer did not have enough time to experiment with modifying the finite element method control parameters to reduce the computation time The reviewers learning process on how to use the soft ware was at times hampered by outdated or inadequate information in the user s manual or minor bugs in the pro gram However software support via e mail communica tion was excellent in answering one reviewer s questions After several e mail exchanges the reviewer was able to use the software effectively The software evaluation took approximately 30 hours The problem setup schematics drawn in SVFlux and ChemFlux can be exported as dxf emf or wmf files the last two are Windows meta files For two dimensional problems this is quite adequate For three dimensional problems the program can display wire frame representa tions of surfaces used to define model layers When several surfaces are displayed together the wire frame lines result in a cluttered picture that is difficult to interpret The graph ical output capability of the solver FlexPDE is quite limited A more useful option is to save the results to a file in a for mat that can be imported to Tecplot or AcuMesh Soil V1 s
11. mber December 2004 805 i FlexPDE Evaluation Version 3 10c Fe Edit Problem Tutorial_Earth_Fill_Dam Status CPU time 0 00 STAGE 1 GRID 1 NODES 387 CELLS 166 RMS Error 9 067e 4 12 37 38 9 2 04 FlexPDE 3 10c Tutonial_Earth_Fill Dam Grid 1 p2 Nodes 387 Cells 166 RMS Err 9 1e 4 Stage 1 In Plot Window Double click to maximize Right click for menu 7 Seles Activity Monitor Co SVFlux 4 05 Demo i SvFlux2 3PG Paint Y FlexPDE Evaluation V amp Im ve 10 19 AM Figure 1 A screen capture of a program window for the SVFlux software The strength of the software lies in the automatic mesh generation mesh refinement during the solution process and automatic time step control Two dimensional prob lems can be quickly set up in SVFlux by drawing regions and assigning soil properties boundary and initial condi tions Three dimensional problems are set up as a stack of layers After the problem is set up the user clicks the Ana lyze button to run the simulation What actually happens behind the scene is that SVFlux generates a script for the specified problem and launches FlexPDE To simulate transport the flow simulation is first run using SVFlux and then the problem geometry and the computed fluxes are imported to ChemFlux ChemFlux can model the transport of a single solute and simulates advection dispersion adsorption and decay The current version of ChemFlux only hand
12. reviewers from government industry and acade mia try out full working versions of software packages and provide readers with a concise summary of their experi ences and opinions regarding the capability stability and ease of use of these packages Software Editor Chunmiao Zheng can be reached at the University of Alabama Department of Geological Sciences Box 870338 Tuscaloosa AL 35487 czheng ua edu Not All Bioaugmentation Cultures Are Equal THE GOLD STANDARD IN BIOAUGMENTATION DECHLORINATOR Demonstrated Performance Results Guaranteed KB 1 is by far the most field demonstrated culture for bioaugmentation to treat chlorinated solvents Dehalococcoides bacteria are required for complete dechlorination of PCE and TCE past cis 1 2 DCE to ethene Unfortunately Dehalococcoides are not present at all sites Bioaugmentation with KB 1 is a proven and cost effective means of ensuring the success of your chlorinated solvent bioremediation projects For a free no obligation cost estimate for bioaugmentation at your site please contact www siremlab com Phone 519 822 2265 or toll free 866 251 1747 t Exclusive license agreement with E I Du Pont de Nemours amp Co Us Patent Application USSN 09 548 998 Hendrickson and Ebersole U S Patent Office 1999 PCT WO 0063443 A3L 2000 some conditions apply visit our website for details of our money back guarantee 808 Vol 42 No 6 GROUND WATER Novemb
13. stantially enhanced by thoroughly updated documentation For three dimensional problems better three dimensional visualization capabilities would greatly help in setting up the problem The graphical output generated by FlexPDE was lim ited and uninspiring The graphical settings are made prior to running the simulation The plots generated by the solver are saved to a file for later viewing but graphical settings for example contour intervals cannot be changed after the run The contours are sometimes choppy and the color schemes do not come out very well on the computer screen Furthermore contours are labeled with letters referencing a legend rather than numerical values and units are not Open Enrollment Courses Finite Element Groundwater Regulatory Review of Hydrogeology Waterloo Hydrogeologic Inc has been offering professional training seminars since 1989 During this time we ve earned a reputation for delivering innovative courses that combine state of the art Modeling Advanced Applications for Saturated Unsaturated Flow amp Transport Density Dependent Flow and Heat Transport Waterloo Canada Nov 2 5 2004 Waterloo Canada Mar 15 18 2005 Applied Groundwater Flow amp Contaminant Transport Modeling Theory and Hands on Applications using MODFLOW MODPATH MT3D amp WinPEST MO1434 SNISN Studies Approaches and Insights for Reviewing Modeling Reports Waterloo Canada April 26 29 2005
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