Journal of Hydrology, 58 (1982) 111--121 111
Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands
[41
ON THE FLOW OF FLUID IN THE WEDGED ANISOTROPIC POROUS
DOMAIN
G.K. FALADE
Department of Petroleum Engineering, University of Ibadan, Ibadan (Nigeria)
(Received March 10, 1981; accepted for publication June 19, 1981)
ABSTRACT
Falade, G.K., 1982. On the flow of fluid in the wedged anisotropic porous domain. J.
Hydrol., 58: 111--121.
Solutions to the problem of fluid flow in an anisotropic porous domain, wedged by
two vertical planes were developed. The solutions are applicable to all wedge angles as
distinct from similar solutions generated from use of image technique which are of re-
stricted applications.
The solutions presented can also be interpreted from the viewpoint of the source func-
tions thus opening an effective means of solving fluid flow problems in a wide variety of
porous domains with varying angular sections.
INTRODUCTION
Analysis of the potential distribution function due to an active source
within a wedged porous domain is usually carried out by the application of
source imaging across boundaries of permeability discontinuities (Vanden-
berg and Lennox, 1973). For accuracy and completeness, this technique
requires that the angle 47r be an integer multiple of the wedge angle; a con-
dition rarely met in real-life situations. The implication of this is that a frac-
tional image may have to be entertained if the analysis is to be complete.
This weakness of the imaging technique may not be very important when the
wedge angle is small and the functional representations of the image sources
are rapidly convergent. For large wedge angles, however, the problem of the
fractional image may become more difficult to handle. Also, there is the
serious possibility that an image location may fall within the primary flow
field particularly when the wedge angle is given as (nTr/m) where n and rn are
positive integers greater than unity and prime to each other (Sommerfield
1897). For such cases, the imaging technique will completely fail because a
point of singularity other than the objective source is located within the
primary flow field.
The purpose of this study is to develop a solution which will completely
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