Vapor flow to trench in leaky aquifer

Soil-vapor extraction has become the most common innovative technology for treating subsurface soils contaminated with volatile and semivolatile organ ic compounds. This popularity is due partly to the low cost of vapor extrac tion and partly to the fact that mitigation is completed in situ. Previous applications of this technology have generally considered flow to either ve rtical or horizontal wells. However, vapor flow to a trench offers the adva ntages of a more uniform velocity field and lower construction costs at sit es with shallow water tables. Therefore, an analytical solution is obtained for steady flow to a trench. The trench is assumed to partially penetrate an anisotropic aquifer and to have a finite horizontal length. The bottom a quifer boundary is assumed to be an impermeable water table, and the top bo undary is a semipermeable aquitard. A comparison is made with held measurem ents to illustrate the application of the solution and to give confidence i n its use.