A new algorithm for analytic element modeling of large-scale groundwater flow

Abstract

This work introduces a new iterative Analytic Element Method (AEM) algorithm for solving 2D steady-state groundwater flow models containing large numbers of head-specified elements (e.g., rivers and lakes). The new algorithm improves convergence of models containing head-specified elements by explicitly computing fluxes of all such features at the start of each iteration. The new algorithm also enables the use of efficient parallel processing on distributed-memory super-computers. The combination of parallel processing and reduced number of iterations significantly extends the size and complexity of problems that can be modeled using AEM.