Groundwater Flow Demonstration Model
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- I was commissioned to build this model in support of a presentation about geotechnical engineering. The goal is to illustrate the flow paths that groundwater takes under an obstruction (e.g. a sheet pile or cutoff wall). So much of engineering is just theoretical work, so it was really cool to see such an elegant example of a geotechnical engineering concept borne out in real dirt and water. Thanks for watching and let me know what you think.
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I learned about streamlines and potential flow in one of my advanced fluid dynamics classes but never saw a practical example of the flow in action. Thanks for the hard work, visualizing these things makes all the difference!
yeah I always wanted to know the practicality that I learn from calc 3
Ikr, what do we pay for college/uni again? Thousands of dollars/euros/whatever but a model (irl or not) is too much work. Sure, on your master you get to play with the cool stuff, but that's just too late for no good reason.
,oòo
Instablaster...
I usually don't like non-technical vids, but this was watered-down in a good way with the visual model.
....... watered...... Down???? 😅
@@ThunderHawk1337 yeah it had a rather specific gravity to the whole demonstration ... very absorbing tbh
I see what you did there
@@0623kaboom Gosh you guys seem to really get into the flow when doing such wet jokes. Please stay grounded and try to level out that demonstration of creative potential somewhere else. Water you even thinking?
Ikr, it's as if knowledge seeps it's way into my brain easily with his explanation
I am a maintenance electrician in wastewater treatment and I am fascinated in all of the civil engineering things that happen in our world that no one really thinks about. When we need to shut the plant down for short periods of time in the summer for maintenance work, it surprised me to hear that some work requires it to be dry for up to a week because of all of the water in the ground still making its way to the piping underground. Apart from this summer, a week of no rain in Seattle is not exactly common.
But I love your projects, thank you for sharing.
Ralph Angelo, I am an 80 year old engineer, and you are the first person I know who actually went out of his way to thank the engineers for what they provide to society. Normally, the public thanks and tips, waiters and barmen who pour out their drinks! All other social and humanitarian and artistic and philosophical and legal and caring and doctors and religions etc. they had 10,000 years to improve the conditions of the family, but all they did was to provide the family with verbal soothing drugged sentences while people lived on earth and manipulated the people's minds to have faith in gaining comfort in the afterlife and when we are dead. Meanwhile the world was full of dirt, plagues, sexual transmitted diseases, poverty, dirt roads, London was full of horse manure due to horse drawn cabs. Engineers in less that 150 years changed that philosophy to having comfort on this earth rather than in the afterlife and so provided closed sewers, electricity, clean running water, soap, engines to produce more food and more fishing, ALL THE TANGIBLE GUARANTEED COMFORTS IN AND OUTSIDE OUR HOME, transport on land sea and sky, better medicine, all the surgical and other equipment at hospitals, all the clothes we wear, and so much more and more.
Sir thank you for your observation as which profession did improve the conditions of the family AND ALSO IMPROVED THE STANDARD AND STYLE OF LIVING of all the other professions who provide only unguaranteed emotional services to the family. If it was not for engineers, there would be no developed countries. All undeveloped countries have, culture, traditions, politics, art, religions, music, tribal hierarchy, status, casts, witch doctors, rain dancers, fortune and future tellers, prayers,.............. but they have no ENGINEERS! Now with modern communications the people in undeveloped countries are rushing in as immigrants to the developed countries to get the benefits of ENGINEERING TANGIBLE COMFORTS as that outweighs all they had with respecting only the older classical professions. It takes a thousand years to orient a human brain into an engineering logic which deals with unseen and silent functions.............. in the old says undeveloped countries saw silent and unseen functions as a supernatural domain belonging to the Gods! Invisible functions as Electromagnetic Radio Waves and unseen water flow and the beauty of GRADIENTS, DIVERGENCES AND CURL and other operators as the square root of minus one, which solves the electromagnetic wave as a periodic function ALL THAT BELONG TO THE ENGINEERS. Engineers are a transformation of God into human beings.
In a nutshell, God is an electromagnetic energy and E= mc^2 + ( something else) and once electromagnetic energy changes into mass as it does when the sun rays falls on trees to produce our food, then when one sees a tractor or any other machine working the fields......... all the observers should say that they saw the Engineering God at work to help all society working away as a machine at homes or in industry or transport and building shelters for the TANGIBLE COMFORT OF PEOPLE. People has become so used to the comfort of engineering that they want GUARANTEE with every engineering product they own! Yet all society does not demand guaranteed from those it pays most as Lawyers, Teachers, Religious Members, University Professors, Doctors, Surgeons, Politicians, Officers in the Navy , Army, Airforce, Police, and traffic wardens, Judges and Magistrates........................ that is SOCIETY which is so cruel to engineers, as the average person has not the slightest idea of what responsibility an engineer carries on his shoulder. Those who fly or sail think that the responsibility lies with the pilots, and the Captains or the Politicians!!!! Society should stop and think!
You have been waiting a while to say all that Carmel.
So, Salut! Thank you for using your Engineering skills to help to make modern civilisation.
One engineer to another.
On behalf of all citizens, I thank each and every type of engineer for doing what you guys do best.
Ralph Angelo, I am an 80 year old engineer, and you are the first person I know who actually went out of his way to thank the engineers for what they provide to society. Normally, the public thanks and tips , waiters and barmen who pour out their drinks! All other "social and humanitarian and artistic and philosophical and legal and caring and doctors and religions etc. they had 10,000 years to improve the conditions of the family, but all they did was to provide the family with verbal soothing drugged sentences while people lived on earth and promised the people to have faith in gaining comfort in the afterlife and when we are dead. Meanwhile the world was full of dirt, plagues, sexual transmitted diseases, poverty, dirt roads, London was full of horse manure due to horse drawn cabs. Engineers in less that 150 years changed that philosophy to having comfort on this earth rather in the afterlife and so provided closed sewers, electricity, clean running water, soap, engines to produce more food and more fishing, ALL THE TANGIBLE GUARANTEED COMFORTS IN AND OUTSIDE OUR HOME, transport on land sea and sky, better medicine, all the surgical and other equipment at hospitals, all the clothes we wear, and so much more and more.
Sir thank you for your observation as which profession did improve the conditions of the family AND ALSO IMPROVED THE STANDARD AND STYLE OF LIVING of all the other professions who provide only unguaranteed emotional services to the family.
I'm about to start a business in agriculture with a strong focus on ecological preservation. Your videos have been a huge help for me in understanding how to design my property to reduce waste and learn how to better curate a forest farm. Thank you so much!
I live 60 miles from New Orleans and go down there frequently. There are substantial areas that are well below sea level there. I have seen little "artisan wells" appear and sandbags are placed in a chimney like structure around the hole till the level of water in the chimney reaches a height in which the water in the column's weight equals the water pressure being driven below from the other side of the levee.
I'm a member of an organization that rebuilds and operates antique railway equipment. When the locomotives or railroad cranes move down the tracks, there is a wave of water that appears out of the ground which follows the equipment down the track as the heavy equipment depresses the ground.
I know in the Netherlands, ground water has to be kept near the surface so that the wooden pilings that support the buildings don't dry out, rot and collapse the buildings. They must have a Goldilocks level of not too high to flood, but not too low to cause structure collapse.
Lewis Doherty
What an immensely retarded population to live under sea level....
if they were actually retarded ( like some other groups) then they would have died long ago... or moved somewhere else. Obviously
Thank you VERY MUCH for posting this video.
In my town, officials have been considering the recharge of local aquifers using partially treated wastewater. So this visualization of the flow of groundwater from a basin was VERY relevant.
I think I found a new channel to be addicted too...
Hi, it's me, your brother.
No your just a copy cat, just like me. Neither of use are the real laughing man.
Addicted to*
Now i am addicted to that channel. I am also addicted to meth and pop tarts. Partytime.
JonBaileyMusic Now I'm addicted too :)
"Models speak louder than words", spot on. Thank you for what you do.
I couldn't ignore the introduction too, "Mechanical engineers design the weapons, civil engineers design the target. It's even worse for Geotechnical engineers who only worry about who falls short of the target"😅
I can understand this and it feels intuitively correct when considered, but I'd never have *thought* to consider it; Thanks.
Great video! I've been a professional hydro-geo for 12 years (incidentally sometimes using potassium permanganate as a remedial amendment) and really enjoyed watching this demo.
From a fellow CE, thanks for putting a visual model to a mathematical model. Well done.
Make that two :)
The real world comes first; mathematics and logic models the real world. This is a small scale example.
This channel is amazing. I completed my bachelors in civil engineering last year and I am now halfway through my masters in structural engineering! Its so interesting to see these important engineering concepts that have been taught to me demonstrated in real life!! Keep up the awesome work.
Your narration reminds me of the "How It's Made" videos on Science Channel.
I like "How It's Made".
Matthew Jiang that show is so relaxing lol
"Thanks for watching and let me know what you think". I think that this has brightened my day. Elegance in presentation, and intellectual integrity. (No matter what you talk about you do it carefully, clearly and to convey a meaning.) What an antidote to inane Internet!
This is amazing...
Before watching this video...
I thought that such type of flows are theoretical i.e. only a theoretical part of soil mechanics "FLOW NET THEORY" or fluid mechanics and exists in books only... But this video practically demonstrate it...
Good Job 👌..👍
I was just having a conversation with someone, and the idea of ground water flow came up. I really struggled to picture it in my mind. I thought, surely someone has made a video showing it. The first place I even thought to look was Practical Engineering, and you didn't let me down. Top shelf work as always Grady.
Wow. 1:30 I actually drew the same kind of equipotential graph in my college physics class. But for an entirely different subject, electricity. :-)
It's fascinating how these two seemingly unrelated fields can overlap.
Hey ! I work for a geotech firm and I play with dirt EVERY DAY ! Best job ever that no one has ever heard of
The high water level on one side of the model exerts a pressure that pushes the water down into the ground. As the liquid sinks, the difference in pressure from the other side of the model creates a vacuum that pulls the water in to balance the system. It makes sense, but it’s pretty cool to see it happen. Great job
I love the way that the visual models look in your videos, they add a level of understanding that just can't be grasped with infographics
THAT was cool. I've read of this, but never saw such a clear example. Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic stuff.
Attempted to explain this for decades
You visualized it in under 4 minutes
Thank you
Amazing demonstration. I finally get what these figures mean. Thank you!!!
What a captivating intro. I wouldn't have finished this video if you didn't start with such profound insight in the beginning.
Sometimes finding a practical way of demonstrating the theory is more satisfying than finding the original theory. Get demo. 👍
Been in youtube for a while now, Glad I came Across your video,
I'm A civil Engineering student here in the Philippines.
Great Model!!
+Renz Thanks!
The alliteration and consonance are strong with this one.
Wordengineer.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Great demonstration! Far too many engineers don’t, or can’t, visualize the things they are working with.
Errata: The fittings are nylon, the clear tubing is polyvinylchloride.
So if mercury is dumped in one township it can skip over several other townships to start poisoning the water supply of another.
According to this video, it will just seep under the closest wall and come up on the other side
Uh... not really
lash but that closest 'wall' can be a zone of clay or impermeable rock, contrasted by very permeable sand. (or of course a human made dam) Also in real life you have 3 dimensions, so ground water can go around things or follow the route of past rivers, in the same manner.
lash but that closest 'wall' can be a zone of clay or impermeable rock, contrasted by very permeable sand. (or of course a human made dam, or a combination of natural and human made barriers.) Also in real life you have 3 dimensions, so ground water can go around things or follow the route of past rivers, in the same manner.
+Treblaine Are you thinking about poisoning your neighboring town?
Love your video. As a geotechnical field technician I feel your pain in people underestimation the importance of our work.
That was great! Love your narration!
I love this type of science. Being an outdoorsman all my life, I would take my kids on journeys through rivers in drought and show them the rivlets that seeped water into otherwise glacially dry rivers where groundwater supplied the water necessary for returning salmon and steelhead.
In our village, septic tanks don't have cemented bottoms. I always assumed that it has to contaminating the ground water. But does this mean that if ground water is deep enough, the water from septic would rather come out around the surface and evaporate?
No, water always move down unless there is a barrier impeding it's moveme
Wow. I'm a junior in a technical highschool studying engineering, not a specific type just the basics of it all, and I haven't heard of Geotechnical Engineering or how groundwater flows. Thank UA-cams recommended section I found this channel!
Reminds me of magnetic fields.
Same family of governing equations :)
This is very cool. Totally not what I was expecting! Interesting video.
+Alipasha Sadri what's the name of it?
HCN 27.0253g/mol I think it is Laplace equation.
+Alipasha Sadri thanks
Excellent model to describe groundwater flow in that situation. So much more accessible to people who are not proficient in hydrogeology.
EXCELLENT VIDEO
“This coffee tastes like dirt.”
“Really?. It was just...
...ground.”
I got suggested this in 2024 after watching a ton of newer videos lol Hello from 2024!
Thanks for the video! Very informative
We did this experiment in my geotechnical engineering course as part of the semester project and compared the experimental results to the computational results (geostudios 2012). The results came out almost identical. It's an awesome experiment to conduct and it really helps with wrapping your head around this and understanding it.
i am glad that i got lost. great video
This is a great demo! I used to work in a soil mechanics laboratory squeezing wet clay samples all day and doing darcy permeability measurements.
Keep the demos coming!
Haha geotechnical engineering is beneath civil engineering. (ba dum CHA)
Haha, geotechnical engineering is a dirty job. (ba dum CHA)
(ba dum CHA)
ba dum tsssss* , have an upvote and dont be a noob lol
...and mechanical engineering destroys civil engineering?
mechanical engineering is a bit...
mechanical.
I don't know what I was going for there XP
A extraordinarily eloquent presentation. One would think they were listening to a PhD in English or a famous novelist explain the concept.
Don't forget electrical engineers. We tell the weapons how to get to the targets, and tell the targets how to avoid the weapons.
Thanks for the demonstration! At first, I thought the lines were superimposed because of how well defined they were. Cool to see how it actually works.
This was hidden from me when I was a student at the university
I still cant wrap my mind around the idea flowing up the ground as shown here. Mind blowing.
What sorcery is this? Why doesnt the water flow Straight down?
Water flows based on pressure gradients. The pressure regime in a soil is based on the length of the flow path. It can get very complicated.
+Practical Engineering my head is already spinning. Thanks for trying!
It reminds me of a current flowing though a conductor. Seems like there is some repulsion and attraction, finding a path of least resistance. This is bizarre. I never knew about this about how water behaves.
I seem to remember my physics teacher explaining that electricity and water both act in similar fashions, which is why we use some of the same terms when labeling and explaining the movement of both entities.
Because there's pressure on one side and none on the other side, thus water moves trough sand and emerges where pressure pushes it out.. Better question why didn't the 3 lines collide?
The amount of time and dedication you have toward your trade is very admirable! I wish all of my colleagues worked with at least 1/2 as much ambition.
As a non engineer, this fascinate me. Question: what does one do with this info? How does one design around this or with it in mind?
+Peter XYZ That's a complicated question but I can give an example. When designing a dam, the greater the uplift pressure from groundwater, the lower the stability. So many dams have cutoff walls into the ground like the model to try and reduce that pressure.
Thanks for the enlightenment.
Wow! before I knew this channel I thought that Engineering was sort of "inferior" to fisycs and astronomy, but now this channel has completely opened my head up again
All this being known and researched, how can corporations pretend that they had no idea about the influx of fracking?
Fracking, as the name suggests, involves sudden fracture of the gaps between the grains of soil. That is a totally different mechanism from the gradual movement of fluid between essentially stationary grains of sand as demonstrated in this video.
fracking is not the issue with them, because they fracture miles down below the ground water. The issue is faulty seals against the groundwater when drilling down through it.
@@snap-off5383 to elaborate. They are supposed to have a well of concrete downward that prevents fracing fluids from entering the ground water.
A few seconds left on the video for me, but the number of puns on dirt and the ground just made me feel so... dirty.
Top tier engineering content 💯
This reminded me of "There will be blood"
Your comment made me laugh so hard.
Ariel Artunduaga : )
You get that from my research ?
Amazing movie though
Wow! I learned more in 3 minutes than I did in both my combined Soil Mechanics and Geotech classes.
How does this translate in a macro scale? There's a huge aquifer below Albuquerque, NM. Does the water flow through dirt, or is there a huge channel under the city?
+Andrew H
Damn! it's like you were in my mind painting a picture. you should teach school or something.
+Andrew H
Damn! it's like you were in my mind painting a picture. you should teach school or something.
Andrew H's comment seems to have disappeared, so I'll add my own, less vivid, contribution:
While it's possible to have caves filled with water underground an aquifer is explicitly something like in the video: either permeable rock or something like sand or gravel which is saturated with water.
@@fergochan (How did you know Adam's reply was vivid?)
The visual model was an extremely interesting way to demonstrate the point, thank you for going to the effort to build & display.
Thank you for this educational demo. It looks like the flow of water goes in the same way as magnetic field lines. Is there a relation?
Good eye. Groundwater flow and magnetic flux behave very similarly.
this Channel is perfect for those who wanna be civil engineers or who are interested in this job! Although I am not a fan of civil engineering, this is good for me to see how stuff laying around us works! Keep it awesome!
I have a CE degree and it's fun to see people enjoying such a boring subject. So I give credit to the channel for that.
Ted Soto Haha because you have no interest on this, while some people are craving for contribute their whole life in it.
1003Alfred
Perhaps you can't read or comprehend well. I never said that I have no interest in civil engineering. I HAVE 2 DEGREES IN CIVIL ENGINEERING (BS and MS) but let's face it, civil engineering isn't sexy and can be quite boring.
Emm I see :o
Can you make a video on hydro-fracking and mineral and heavy metal migration through soil?
I'm really glad I found your more recent videos so that I could find these gems! What an awesome visual to explain something that most of us have never given a single thought to, and paired with some great writing!
0:16 and aerospace engineer's design the planes to deliver the mechanical engineer's weapons
+mettsenator and chemical engineers make the fuel and explosives for those planes.
And software engineers make sure those weapons break down and you have to turn them off and on again every few hours.
Famine and pestilence don't really sound like the makings of a good party.
비니보이 Men. I think we just found the solution world peace
That was rather more interesting than I thought it would be.. but now I am gonna have to go and look up other vid's that you have made... of the life of a retiree is never dull.. work, work, work...
How does this work if you place rocks and pockets into the model?
Still works, water goes around, pressure causes this not gravity
Wow. Shows the value of modelling. I would not of expected it to flow in that manner.
Is this why we put plastic vapor barriers under concrete slabs?
Nope. The purpose of V-barriers is, as the name says, keeps water vapors coming out of the ground from migrating into the structure above and causing all manner of humidity-related problems (mold, rot, bug infestations, allergies, etc.).
+Double Dare Fan so, on a related tangent, how would one go about creating a vapor barrier where one was not installed, ie, a 70 y.o. concrete block basement??! ....if you happen to know (:
+erintreez there are lots of epoxy vapor barriers that go on surfaces.
+Evan Adams so, essentially the vapor barrier could be painted on the interior floor and walls....
+erintreez not painted on. you usually squeegee it on and very much rough up the surface
Excellent way of showing the water movement through real dirt. Thanks
Wow thats amazing! I never knew that happened, why does it separate into three curves?
+lxt101 Thanks. There's no separation in the flow. I just put three individual drops of dye to illustrate the flow pattern.
Practical Engineering Oh okay so its all bleeding through, the whole way. Is there a transparent sand to make this experiment with so we can see it in a more three dimensional view?
Practical Engineering What kind of ecological impacts can you expect when you change the flow of ground water? or regulate it at leaste?
lxt101
There is a law for this, something about an object in motion. Fresh water on right is being added, it naturally wants to sink. Water on left is being removed. Water from right gets pulled to the left.
It takes slightly longer for the vacuum effect to act on the further away objects, so you get this lovely curve. Speed x force = momentum or something. Don't really know as I only have a GED. Or as any 3rd grader today may consider common sense the way they have accelerated the education system.
It gets interesting if you add a 3rd section and another pump. What do you think would happen to the 3 lines?
not three curves, its a conitinuousl flow field, we only see three traces because he used 3 patches of potasium permanganate
This is also a great demonstration that diffusion is also important here, as you can see the flow of the real liquid gets slowly dispersed around the flow lines. That is a very neat parameter regime indeed. And relatively easy to demonstrate.
What do you think about fracking?
Man, this channel has come a long way. But its foundations are solid! 😉😉😉
who knew
This was top notch, fellow civil eng. salutes you.
didnt understand what was happening I wish you had explained it a little bit better
+Jaime Gomez Zaragoza I did this video before I rebranded my channel to be strictly about engineering. I do want to redo this video to have a more cohesive lesson.
Do it please, I found it truly interesting
Yes please do!
Jaime Gomez Zaragoza Basically just don't pee near you property line because it may soak up on the other side and your neighbor may be walking in it soon...
cheers from Canada Tinman Bigfoot Tracker channel Canada British Columbia BC.
Tinman Bigfoot Tracker so thats how i get my neighbour to walk urine puddles
I just took principles of soil mechanics at uni, this was the flow nets that we had to calc. totally makes sense now that i can visibly see it
Excellent demonstration! I have never really thought about this before, but I find it logical now that you showed it.
Wow, one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
As a PhD in material science I am always looking for nice ways to illustrate engaging concepts.
You do a great job of it.
I am a website programmer who really appreciates your videos.
Completely randomly suggested video But I’m glad it did 👍🏻🤍
I am also a Geotechnical engineer, it's good to see the video.
This is the channel i've been looking for!! I teach high school geology and engineering. Please keep making these videos.
Great job. Clicked it at random and couldn't stop watching.
Such a simple way to visualise flow net basics, in a closer to real-world way! :) Thanks for making it!
You explanation of your industry headaches is great, to the point, and without complaining. :)
Thanks sooooo much "Practical Engineering" for showing real details of ground water flow.
Please make videos related to Aquifers, Aqui life & other ground water phenomenas.
Excellent video demonstration, I was very surprised to see how the model worked. It is very counterintuitive to see the water flow back up. I was really intrigued by that...
Awesome! Thank you so much for the efforts you put in sir. I know about the flow net but never saw how it works practically. Your channel is a real gem for our civil engineers
this is amazing! thank you for sharing and creating this. More people will have to know what the water underneath their property is doing as we face a rising ocean and changing climate.
Wow cool stuff. It makes sense that all that potential flow theory I learned in fluid mechanics course for modeling wings and such applies to groundwater, but I never would have thought about it.
It is a very graphic and didactic way to learn what we're taught in class, I'm an Environmental Science MSc student, with a BSc in Env. Engineering and I always found difficult to understand this physics, and math stuff, thanks for the video!
This is more thoughtful than my engineering class of Geotech. thanks a lot!
Thank you for demonstrating this amazing way of transforming the properties of dirt!
Weird thing to mention, but what a great narrating script! I had to watch it again immediately.
Wish my father was alive to show him your channel. He was an electro mechanical engineer but did civil engineering in Dominican Republic.
Oh well. This all just went over my head. I'll keep watching and maybe it'll click for me. Thanks for the vid, nicely done.
That was awesome!
I am deeply confused by the forces Im seeing there. Yet also incredibly facinated. This is a great demonstration!
The pressure is higher on the right side so the water is forced down by gravity and towards a lower pressure area, which is the left side.