psinton@aquageo.us

yes, under material properties, you right click what you want to make transient (like in/outflow on top/bottom), and the select "make transient"...this adds more editing options to the transient parameter and displays it differently

FINIT is the field you link to he user data set you created.  When you select "link to parameter" the window will have a line that reads "node/slice selection".  In the box to the right of that, you use the dropdown selector to select "filed containing node number". 

when you set the data assign toolbar to "current expression" then double click the words "current expression" the expression editor will appear.  Unless you have a stored expression it will be a default of "current new = current"  and the second current will be green.  You replace the green "current" with an expression.  to the right there is a data tree that lists all the variables (model input and outputs) that you can use to build expression including the nodal data set you added (it will have an abbreviation like "ND.1").  To compute a difference, you simply type something like "Head - ND.1".  I think there are training videos at feflow.info

sorry, not much time for creating screen captures

cheers

can you export if your right-click in the panel?

time series is done through "flow volume", so to get transient rates you divide by the time step.  the new flux calculator is more accurate than the old one because it only deals with element faces.  the old flux analyzer does not have this capability, so you have to watch out for artifacts introduced by poor interpolation.

Did you find an answer? You use the flow rate and flow volume panels for this.  They have two selections, a DOI selection of elements to define the main focus of the calculation, and an MD selection which is used to further focus the computation on, for example, element faces that the two selections share.

It would have been nice if instead they'd set this up using a process similar to the face-selection method used for discrete features.

Add a nodal user data set.  Export the head from one of the times you want to use in the drawdown calculation (to a dat file), add that dat file as a map and "link to parameter" -> the new user data you just added.  set the link up so that the NODE field of the dat file points to node number.  activate the new user data and select all nodes in a 3d view (I'm assuming a 3d model).  set the data assign toolbar to the linked map and click the green check.  now select the other time you want to use in the ddn calc, and then use the expression editor to recalculate the new user data using "current = current - head".  next select the expression in the data assignment toolbar and then click the green checkmark.  Your new nodal user data should contain the difference between the head at the two times you selected.

your description is unclear

set the saturation and concentration at all seawater nodes to 1 and 0 respectively

Make sure you are running the most current version of 6.1.  Your model is not so big that the gui cannot handle it (I wonder what size would though).  I wonder if there is an error in the input (could be just one bad K value) somewhere causing the crash...I have seen this happen from time to time.

In transient pumping, depending on how you set it up, the pumping rate may get averaged from one time to the next.  Use a step function (curve type "step") if you don't want this to happen.  In Phreatic, if a node dries out (minimal water level in the associated element), the model may behave oddly (not sure this would affect the pumping rate though, maybe just the simulated heads).