Making AnAqSim even easier to learn, and expanding its power
We are happy
to announce that, as flexAEM training nears its 10th year, we have
completely updated our series of training exercises. These exercises match the
new look and features of AnAqSim Analytic Element Method (AEM) groundwater
modeling software, and have been reorganized to make it easier to learn how to
build your AnAqSim modeling skills in a stepped and progressive program of
training.
In addition,
we have added new exercise sets to enhance the speed of building and
calibrating an AnAqSim model. These include instructions and example for using
the accuracy and spatial data availability of QGIS geospatial analysis software
to build your AnAqSim models. And there is a comprehensive introduction that
explains and demonstrates how to harness the power of PEST to automatically
calibrate and perform parameter uncertainty analyses for your AnAqSim flow
models. Both QGIS and PEST are free software that can be obtained from their
respective authoring organizations for use with AnAqSim.
Exercises are organized into 15 sets that build in depth and complexity as your training advances (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. New reorganized, updated, and expanded flexAEM exercise sets provide a structured way to lead you step by step through the process of learning AEM groundwater flow modeling with AnAqSim.
AEM groundwater modeling holds a number of advantages over
numerical techniques like Finite Difference and Finite Element. You don’t have
to spend hours or days setting up and tweaking your modeling grid of rectangles
or triangles and trying to fit the hydrologic features of your model into that “checkerboard”.
You focus on the actual location and geometry of the features themselves, draw
them into your model space, and assign them properties. And then when you solve
you don’t just get a head value back at your grid block centers or nodes; you
can calculate head as a continuous function anywhere in space. This gives you
unparalleled accuracy without the computational burden of a super-fine mesh.
The 15 flexAEM exercise sets are ordered from easy to more
complex. This allows you to begin with the basics and then progress through
more advanced model-building and flow system analysis techniques (see Figure
1). And each set is assembled to contain several exercises that demonstrate the
topic, with each exercise containing step-by-step instructions and diagrams,
and any needed starting files and basemap files.
This system of self-paced training will have you building a “Hello World” introductory groundwater model in minutes (Figure 2), and can place the efficiency and power of AEM modeling in your hands in days to weeks (Figure 3) depending on how deep you need to go for your initial modeling projects and how much time you can commit.
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Figure 2. Simple “Hello World” example lets you build an AnAqSim model in 10 minutes |
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Figure 3. flexAEM exercises introduce you to AEM modeling concepts and AnAqSim features such as groundwater flow pathline tracing. |
And there is no need to work step-by-step through every
exercise, although that can be very helpful in absorbing all that the flexAEM
training has to impart. It may speed your progress to start with the basics to
understand AEM modeling concepts and the AnAqSim software, and then “skip
ahead” to a particular feature or method that you are trying to employ in the
model you are developing, read how that is done, and put those tips to use
directly into your project model.
Any of the 15 flexAEM exercise sets can be purchased
individually, but greater understanding of AnAqSim (and greater savings) can be
achieved by purchasing pre-packaged exercise bundles. The entire system
consists of over 80 exercises and over 2000 pages of instruction and examples.
Purchasing the Ultimate
Bundle package gives you all of that at a price that should fit well in any
training budget and pays tremendous dividends in the project work that it can
support.
