PENNINK

NETHERLANDS (see also List of Individuals)

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27.9.1853 IJsselstein/NL - 21.2.1936 Nijmegen/NL

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Johan M.K. Pennink graduated as a civil engineer from the Polytechnic in Delft in 1859. He joined the Rijkswaterstaat and from 1892 to 1896 collaborated with a private engineering office. Pennink was appointed director of the Amsterdam drinking water service in 1900 and from 1917 to 1932 headed the Central Commission of the Dutch water supply.

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The basic features of groundwater flow were formulated in 1856 by Henry Darcy (1803-1858). Jules Dupuit (1804-1866) presented the equation of well flow shortly before 1860, based on the Darcy permeability law. In 1898 Dupuit's approach was generalized by Philipp Forchheimer (1852-1933). Pennink's 1905 paper reconsidered groundwater flow into a trench thereby noting a much increased velocity close to the drainage surface, as compared with the Darcy equation. The deviation was explained by the particular streamlines at the seepage surface requiring a two-dimensional treatment at the drainage surface. Pennink supported his proposal with model observations conducted at the drinking water laboratory of Amsterdam. He presented it in 1904 to the Royal Institute of Engineers, from whom he was awarded in 1906 the Conrad Medal. A theoretical study on groundwater flow by the physicist Borgesius in 1912 was related to the observations of Pennink, thereby accounting as did previously Henry Selby Hele-Shaw (1854-1941) for the analogy between groundwater flow and the electric potential. Pennink thus contributed also to a local problem in groundwater hydraulics.

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_{Borgesius, A.H. (1912). Grondwaterbeweging in de omgeving van bronnen. De Ingenieur}

_{27(49): 995-1008; 28(23): 463-464.}

_{Oldenborgh, X. van (1936). Ir. J.M.K. Penning. De Ingenieur 51(11): A103-A104. P}

_{Pennink, J.M.K. (1903). Rapport over de verbetering der watervoorziening van Amsterdam.}

_{Staatsdrukkerij: Amsterdam.}

_{Pennink, J.M.K. (1904). De prise d'eau der Amsterdamsche duinwaterleiding. De Ingenieur}

_{19(13): 213-223.}

_{Pennink, J.M.K. (1905). Over de beweging van groundwater. De Ingenieur 20(30): 482-492.}

_{Pennink, J.M.K. (1914). Verzoutingsrapport. Rapport omtrent het stijgen van het zoute water, het toenemen van het chloorgehalte van het duinwater en het verminderen van den zoetwatervoorraad in de duinwaterwinplaats. Amsterdam.}

_{Vries, J.J. de (1980). De ontwikkeling van de inzichten in de grondwater hydrologie in Nederland rond de eeuwwisseling. Tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis der geneeskunde, naturwetenschappen, wiskunde en techniek 3(1): 1-27. P}