Integrating Electrical Analogy and Computer Modeling of Groundwater Flow for Teaching Flownet Concepts

Teaching complex engineering problems can often be enhanced by utilizing students’ prior knowledge in analogously similar problems. Flow of electrical current through a conducting medium is analogous to groundwater flow through a porous medium because both are governed by Laplace equation. This analogy was used in an alternate representational approach by the authors in teaching flownet concepts. The authors employed the easily demonstrable electrical counterpart to represent the groundwater flow problem in a laboratory setting. This paper discusses the efforts of authors to teach the flownet principles better by using the electrical analogy for selected groundwater flow situations. However, it was also demonstrated that the electrical analogy concept can be applied for a wide range of groundwater flow situations with a few simple modifications. Students also used a groundwater flow computer model to obtain flownets for the same flow situations as the ones that were obtained using an electrical analogy. The student feedback indicated that this approach could improve student learning of flownet concepts.