Similarity solution of axisymmetric flow in porous media

Applications of the axisymmetric Boussinesq equation to groundwater hydrology and reservoir engineering have long been recognised. An archetypal example is invasion by drilling fluid into a permeable bed where there is initially no such fluid present, a circumstance of some importance in the oil industry. It is well known that the governing Boussinesq model can be reduced to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation using a similarity variable, a transformation that is valid for a certain time-dependent flux at the origin. Here, a new analytical approximation is obtained for this case. The new solution,, which has a simple form, is demonstrated to be highly accurate.<br /

Note on Barenblatt power series solution to Boussinesq equation

To the self-similar analytical solution of the Boussinesq equation of groundwater flow in a semi-infinite porous medium, when the hydraulic head at the boundary behaved like a power of time, Barenblatt obtained a power series solution. However, he listed only the first three coefficients and did not give the recurrent formula among the coefficients. A formal proof of convergence of the series did not appear in his works. In this paper, the recurrent formula for the coefficients is obtained by using the method of power series expansion, and the convergence of the series is proven. The results can be easily understood and used by engineers in the catchment hydrology and baseflow studies as well as to solve agricultural drainage problems