FLOWNETS
In most conditions, the flow of water through soil is not in one direction
only and it is not uniform over the entire area perpendicular to the flow. In
such cases, groundwater flow is generally found by use of graphs referred
to as flownets.
Techniques:
Use good paper with no printed grids or lines.
Use a scale that permits the whole problem to be viewed at arm’s
length without eye sweep.
Draw the fix boundaries in ink and the flownet in pencil. Use a fairly
soft lead.
Use a small integer for number of flownets ( 2 or 3 or in unusual
circumstances 4, but the ideal is 3 )
Sketch lightly to begin
Sketch – judge – erase
flowline - a line along which a water particle travels from the upstream to
the downstream side in a permeable soil medium
equipotential line – a line along which the potential head is the same at
all points; that is, if piezometers are placed at different points along an
equipotential line, the height of water will rise to the same elevation in
all of them.
flownet – a combination of a number of equipotential lines and flowlines
note:
the equipotential lines intersect the flowlines at right angles
the flow elements formed are approximate squares
*** although convenient, it is not always necessary to draw square
elements for a flownet. It also possible to draw a rectangular mesh
provided that the width to length ratios for all the rectangular
elements in the flownet are the same.
Rate of seepage per unit width
k H Nf
q =
Nd
where:
k = coefficient of permeability
H = head of water
Nf = number of flow channels
Nd = number of equipotential pressure drops / flow channel