I'm doing my thesis about groundwater dewatering in metro tunnels and I need to know that which groundwater modelling software is more practical in terms of underground construction and dewatering.
There are so many groundwater modelling softwares out there. However, since you are interested in dewatering, I will suggest you employ Soil Water Charateristic Curve (SWCC) Modelling approach. There are lots of literature especially by Fredlund on these approach and the procedures.
Visual MODFLOW® Flex is the industry standard software for 3D modelling flows of groundwater, transfer of heat and pollutants.
1. Construction of Conceptual Models and Digital Integrated flow of groundwater
2. Powerful 2D and 3D visualization capabilities
3. Intuitive and easy to use.
Visual MODFLOW Flex allows you to choose the modelling approach you want to use when building the flows of groundwater models. You can choose the approach conceptual models, highly efficient and extremely flexible, or the approach of conventional models.
With Visual MODFLOW Flex, you have a complete set of tools that allow you to treat the water quality, groundwater flows, and initiatives concerning the protection of spring water, thanks to:
MODFLOW-2000, 2005, NWT - Standard modelling of groundwater flow
MODGLOW-LGR - Local mesh refinement (LGR) in shared node for simulations at the regional-local
SEAWAT v.4 - groundwater flow with variable density in 3D, associated with solute transport for several species and heat transfer
MT3DMS - Package Standard simulation of pollutant transport for several species
MODPATH - Standard Package modelling the particle path
Zone Budget - water balance calculation Package of different sub-areas
PHT3D - 3D modelling of reactive transport code of several components in saturated porous medium which combines the two existing computer programs most used, the solute transport modelling and geochemical PHREEQC MT3DMS-2 code of the USGS.
WinPEST - Automatic calibration and sensitivity analysis View all flow engines, transportation engines and MODFLOW packages.
There are many many software programmes out there from descent firms and companies. Depending on what is your real purpose on modeling. To my knowledge one of the best is Feflow, which I strongly recommend. If you are trying to predict the evolution of a pollution in groundwater and you got all data needed such as drilling boreholes details, strata and geological types, fluctuation of aquifer during some years at least etc etc, Feflow will do the best job. But remember before you start modeling you should carefully calibrate your model before attempting applying. This procedure is vital and critical. Finally,do not expect a model to be 100% confident because all of them incorporate some errors in their methodology and approach. But Feflow has been tested in many cases and proved quite reliable and versatile....
Enclosed are the well-known solution method of groundwater flow and transport processes and on this basis developed software products:
1. FDM/FVM based GW-software
http://www.novametrixgm.com/groundwater-software
2. FEM based GW-software
www.mikepoweredbydhi.com/products/feflow
FEFLOW provides best-in-class technology for groundwater flow, contaminant, groundwater age and heat transport simulations. With its efficient user interface and its yet unmatched range of functionality and flexibility, FEFLOW has become a standard in premium groundwater modelling over the last 35 years.
MODFLOW, SEAWAT are two softwares that are used for groundwater modelling. I came across these softwares when I was reviewing a paper on Saline Water Intrusion@ FARZAD
Catchment scale: Flopy (MODFLOW API) just because it is much more efficient when running a lot of models than through the boring and slow GUI.
M to mm scale: Hydrus (when not concerning multiphase flow) or regarding multiphase flow problems then FEFLOW, also easier to just run on a HPC instead of a VM.
The choice always depends on wanted accuracy and available time!