Landfill Gas Well: Radius of Influence & Capture Efficiency

Extraction Well Controls

Well vacuum 3.0 kPa

Waste permeability 1.0×

Gas generation rate 1.0×

Site radius 14 m

Live Readouts

Capture efficiency

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Radius of influence

0.0 m

Fugitive emission rate

0.0 /s

Inside radius of influence — drawn to well

In transit through waste body

Near cover / margin — escaping

How it works

Landfill gas migrates through waste as a porous medium under Darcy flow. A vertical extraction well applies suction, inducing a radial inflow velocity at distance r from the well:

v(r) = Q / (2π·r·h)

Q  — well vacuum flow rate (∝ vacuum × permeability)
h  — effective waste thickness
r  — horizontal distance from the well axis

This inward velocity competes against the background upward migration velocity v_g driven by continued gas generation (anaerobic decomposition). The two balance at the well's radius of influence:

r_ROI ≈ S / v_g ,  S ∝ vacuum × permeability

Inside r_ROI, the well's induced velocity dominates and methane is captured (sent to a flare or gas-to-energy plant). Outside r_ROI, generation pressure wins and gas migrates upward past the cover or laterally past the waste margin as a fugitive emission — exactly the failure mode landfill operators size well spacing to avoid. Each translucent sphere here represents a parcel of migrating gas; its colour marks which regime currently dominates its motion.

Vacuum and permeability both raise the sink strength S, growing r_ROI.
Generation rate raises v_g, shrinking r_ROI and raising fugitive emissions.
Site radius sets how much waste one well must cover — a real design trade-off for well spacing.

Captured: 0 Escaped: 0

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