An efficient approach of meshless node placement in three-dimensional subsurface flow modeling

Meshless methods are valuable tools for real-time subsurface flow modeling and are particularly beneficial for adaptively adjusting node positions when incorporating supplementary measurements. However, an algorithm is required for automatically generating high-quality meshless nodes to adapt to irregularly shaped aquifers and arbitrarily distributed wells. This paper introduces a three-dimensional adaptive meshless node placement technique based on advancing front nodes and proposes a sigmoid exclusion circle to ensure adaptability to specific positions of interest. It is crucial for groundwater simulations to have specified computational points at wellbore locations. The generated meshless nodes were used as computational points in the generalized finite difference method. The node quality was assessed by comparing the numerical solutions to the analytical solution, achieving errors of the order of 10^–12. The application scenarios of irregularly shaped aquifers demonstrated the high efficiency of the three-dimensional node placement in generating up to 10,000 nodes in <5 s. The effectiveness of the algorithm was verified using three-dimensional irregular computational domains. The algorithm could be easily adapted to two-dimensional problems, and an irregular boundary example is presented. The validation and application cases highlighted the versatility of the proposed method and established its potential for real-world hydrogeological applications.