Discharge Sections

Slide, RS2 and RS3 have the ability to compute the instantaneous seepage rate that flows across a user-
defined section that is a line on 2D and a plane in 3D models.

Discharge Section Theory

This value can be computed from the nodal heads. For example, consider a mesh with only one element,
as illustrated below. The objective is to compute the total flow across a section of the element, i.e. the
discharge section. The solution will consider the flow that occurs between any two nodes across the
discharge section. In this case we are solving for the flow from node 2 to 1, 2 to 4, 3 to 1 and 3 to 4.

Discharge section across an element

From Darcy’s law, the flow between two nodes can be calculated as:

∆

= 
∆

where
is the discharge,  is the permeability,  is the area of the flow, ∆ is the chage in total head
and ∆ is the distance between the two nodes.
In a finite element solution of a steady state problem the equation that is solved is:

 = 

For a single element this can be written as:




 





 

     =  




 





 


The coefficient of the

 are representatives of ⁄∆, therefore the flow from node i to node j can
be calculated as:

 =
  −  

The flow across a discharge section would be the summation over of all “
 ”s calculated for elements
that are intercepted by the discharge section.