Aquifer Elasticity and Specifc Storage

Herb Wang

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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This page first made public: Jun 27, 2005

Summary

Aquifer properties | College Lower (13-14), College Upper (15-16)

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Context

Audience

This one hour lab activity is used in the undergraduate hydrogeology course. The materials are common laboratory items and can be put together in a couple of hours.

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Students should have been introduced to the concept of storage. The laboratory description includes a poroelastic formulation of specific storage.

How the activity is situated in the course

The activity can either be a lecture demonstration or a one-hour laboratory to demonstrate the concept of storage.

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

The goal is to provide a poroelastic formulation of storage, and thereby unify concepts of geomechanics with those of hydrogeology.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

The activity promotes quantification of the specific storage in terms of constitutive equations.

Other skills goals for this activity

The activity promotes development of laboratory measurement skill.

Description of the activity/assignment

The goal of this experiment is to measure the specific storage S_s of a balloon, which simulates aquifer elasticity. The experiment is designed to give observational meaning to the variable, increment of fluid content, and the influence of the state of stress on the specific storage. Increment of fluid content is the poroelastic variable defined as the amount of water added to storage per unit bulk volume. It is analogous to quantity of heat added to a unit volume of a material. Specific storage can then be expressed rigorously as the ratio of increment of fluid content divided by the change in head with specified external stress or strain conditions on the REV.