psinton@aquageo.us

I use workstations with single-Xeon hexacore (12 threads) (W3680 or 3690) on server motherboards.  They are i7 with additional benefits: can use ECC memory, can access more memory larger cache, etc.  A bit more expensive than top of the line i7.  I run multi-day jobs, so ECC gives a bit of assurance that results are repeatable.  I agree with Robin, more than 4 core won't make feflow run faster, but if it is the only machine you have, many cores is a good thing.  You can run feflow while continuing work on other software and not have anything be unacceptably slow.  I figure these machines will last 3+ years.  Build your own for under $3K USD (off the shelf will cost 5 to 6K).  Dual Xeon workstations are very very expensive; both the cpu and motherboard needed more than double the cost...but the benefit is very small.  You can build two machines for less than the cost of one dual xeon.

Pete

The larger the residual water content the more error.  In a complex model, a long transient run to equilibrium will almost always provide a better answer than a steady state simply because more the greater amount of "solver work" done and the damping effect of storage on convergence.  Running in confined mode will work as long as the model is mostly submerged; confined-mode is not designed to handle flow conditions where layers can dry out due to topography or due to water extraction.  In such cases, the best solution is to use variable saturation mode.

The transfer rate properties are averaged just like other properties, thus setting one to zero will not stop flow.  The only way to ensure strictly flow in or flow out with 1st and 3rd BC is to use constraints. 

You can get a listing of the DF by saving the FEM in ASCII and searching the file using a text editor for "FRACTURES".  See the pdf supplied with FEFLOW called "file formats.pdf".  The DF are listed sequentially starting with element 1 and there are two sections of information, node connections and properties.  It is quite possible that there is an error in you mesh that is causing the problem.  Perhaps overlapping elements.

Perhaps a generic parameter field, such as the "F" in the ASCII dat files.  A typical field in AutoCAD files is ELEV and THICK, which could also be used.  DXF export is nice because there's only one file generated.  Just a thought.

No, the model is bounded by the mesh.  Even if you have boundary conditions at the edge which allow water in or out, the underlying assumption is not "infinite extent". 

In Version 6.006, exported elements (as polygons) to dxf lacks material property information, whereas export of same information to a shp file does list the information (I tested this on Kxx)