WELL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION 89

Aquifier deposits
Well screens
Pump shaft
Caisson
Pump house
To treatment
plant
Laterals
Figure 2. Horizontal collector well.
for water supply to the City of Lincoln, Nebraska. In
the United States, utilities use horizontal collector wells
whose laterals are located directly under the riverbed.
The caisson of the horizontal collector well is constructed
of reinforced concrete of 2.7 to 6.0 m (9 feet to
20 feet) inside diameter and a wall thickness of approximately
0.5 to 1.0 meters (1.5 to 3.0 feet). The caisson
depth varies according to site-specific geologic conditions,
ranging from approximately 10 meters to over 45 meters
(30 to 150 feet).
The number, length, and location of the horizontal laterals
are determined by a detailed hydrogeologic investigation.
Typically, the diameter of the laterals ranges from
0.2 to 0.3 meters (8 to 12 inches) and their length extends
up to 60 meters (200 feet). The size of the lateral screens is
selected to accommodate the grain size of the underground
soil formation. If necessary, an artificial gravel-pack filter
can be installed around the screens to suit finer grained
deposits. Usually, one well has 2 to 14 laterals.
When horizontal wells are used for fresh or brackish
groundwater intake, the caisson is extended above the
floodplain elevation for this location to protect the pumping
equipment, electrical, and instrumentation and control
equipment from flooding. When used as seawater beach
wells, especially for smaller size applications, Ranneytype
wells can be constructed watertight at or below
grade to minimize their visual impact on the shoreline.
In large intake capacity applications, horizontal beach
wells are typically coupled so that the intake pump
station is installed above the well caisson. The well intake
pump station can be designed with submersible pumps
to minimize noise. However, for medium and larger size
wells, most frequently vertical turbine pumps are used
because these pumps usually have higher energy efficiency
and require less power. A more detailed description
of horizontal collector well design and construction is
presented elsewhere (4).
Infiltration Galleries
Infiltration galleries are riverbank or seashore filtration
systems that are typically implementedwhen conventional
horizontal or vertical intake wells cannot be used because
of unfavorable hydrogeologic conditions. For example, they
are suitable for intakes where the permeability of the
underground soil formation is relatively low, or for river or
seashore filtration, where the thickness of the beach or the
onshore sediments is insufficient to develop conventional
intake wells.
Infiltration galleries consist of an excavation trench
which is filled with filtration media of size and depth
similar to that of the granular media filters used

for conventional water treatment plants. Vertical or

horizontal collector wells are installed at equal distances
(usually 30 to 60 meters) inside the filter media. Typically
the capacity of a single collection well is 0.009 to 0.09 m3/s
(0.2 to 2.0 MGD).
A common type of infiltration gallery is a horizontal
well collection system that has a single trench (Fig. 3).
The media in the wells are configured in three distinctive
layers: a bottom layer of sand of approximately 2 to 3.5
meters (6 to 10 feet), followed by a 1.2 to 2 meter (4
to 6 feet) layer of graded gravel pack surrounding the
horizontal well collector screens, topped by a (6 to 9 meter)
(20- to 30-foot) layer of sand. Horizontal well collector
screens are typically designed for an inflow velocity of
3 cm/s (0.1 ft/s) or less.
Infiltration galleries can be designed either similarly
to conventional rapid sand filters (if the natural source
water movement, such as river flow or ocean water wave
motion, can provide adequate flushing of the infiltration
gallery media contact surface with the waterbody) or can
be constructed as slow sand filtration systems, which have
at least a 9-meter (30-feet) layer of sand overlying the
collection well screens. Infiltration galleries are usually 15
to 20% more costly to construct than conventional vertical
or horizontal intake wells, and therefore, their use is
warranted only when the hyrogeologic conditions of the
intake site are not suitable for conventional intake wells.
Riverbed/Seabed Filtration Intake Systems
These intake systems consist of a submerged, slow sand
medium filtration system (filtration bed) located in a
riverbed or in the near-shore surf zone of the ocean floor
(Fig. 4). The filtration bed is connected to a series of intake
wells located on the shore via tunnels or horizontal collector
pipes.
The filtration bed is sized and configured using design
criteria similar to those for slow sand water treatment
plant filters. The filter bed depth is typically between 0.9 m
and 1.2 m (3 to 4 ft). The gravel supporting the filter bed s
sand is 0.15 to 0.5 m(0.5 to 1.5 ft) deep. The design surface
loading rate of the filter medium is typically between 0.05
and 0.2 m3/m2h (0.2 and 0.8 gpm/sq ft). Similar to slow
sand filters, a mat of natural organic materials is formed
on the surface of the filtration bed. This mat enhances
removal of organics and fine particles from the source