Open Access

ARTICLE

An Inverse Boundary Element Method for Determining the Hydraulic Conductivity in Anisotropic Rocks

R. Mustata¹, S. D. Harris², L. Elliott¹, D. Lesnic¹, D. B. Ingham¹
1 Department of Applied Mathematics University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK, Tel: +44 (0)113 233 5113.
2 Rock Deformation Research, School of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK, Tel: +44 (0)113 233 5252.

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2000, 1(3), 107-116. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmes.2000.001.409

Abstract

An inverse boundary element method is developed to characterise the components of the hydraulic conductivity tensor K of anisotropic materials. Surface measurements at exposed boundaries serve as additional input to a Genetic Algorithm (GA) using a modified least squares functional that minimises the difference between observed and BEM-predicted boundary pressure and/or hydraulic flux measurements under current hydraulic conductivity tensor component estimates.

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