Development and evaluation of a numerical model for steady state interface and/or free surface groundwater flow

A 3D numerical procedure is developed to solve free surface and/or freshwater-saltwater interface groundwater flow problems under steady state conditions, using the Galerkin finite element technique and the Picard linearization method to solve nonlinear systems. The presented approach is an improvement of the Larabi and De Smedt (1997) scheme, and is showed to be robust, more efficient, more stable and more accurate than the latter. Benchmark tests involving different features are presented and discussed to validate the present approach. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.