Methodology to compute the speed of pumps that fit the hydrodynamic levels in a well field

Pumping water from well fields is challenging for any water company, due to the restrictions attached to the aquifers’ hydrogeological characterisation. The difficulty is to set the speed of each pump allowing ensuring a quasi-uniform pumping from all wells in a field, at the highest flow rate that can be extracted from each well, paying attention to avoid clogging. In this paper we propose a methodology to compute the speed of each pump in a well field, corresponding to the desired pumped flow rate range, by keeping the requested hydrodynamic level in each well. The method is exemplified for a case study in Bucharest − a small well field, for which hydrogeological data are available. The nonlinear system of equations that defines the hydraulic system operation is solved in MATLAB for the stationary flow regime attained after reaching constant hydrodynamic levels in all wells. The numerical model of the well field is finally set and run in EPANET, within a dynamic analysis (simulation over an extended period of time), where water levels in the wells adjust to the extracted flow rate, according to the hydrogeological data. Two operating scenarios are discussed.