Fluid-solid coupling mathematical model of contaminant transport in unsaturated zone and its asymptotical solution

IntroductionThetransportofcontaminantsinunsaturatedzonehascausedmuchattention .Inearly1960s,contaminationproblemsofsoilandgroundwaterhadbeenstudiedathomeandabroad[1].Andinrecentyears ,thetransformationandtransportationofcontaminantshavebeendeeplystudiedinthefieldsofhydrogeology ,petroleumengineering ,environmentalengineeringandsoon[2 ,3].Somecontaminanttransportmodelshavebeenpresentedsofar.Forexample ,Paker[4 ]etal.presentedaconstitutivemodelgoverningparametersofwater,gasandcontaminantswhenth…     

Advances in modeling of water in the unsaturated zone

This paper reviews recent advances in analytical and numerical solution of problems of water flow through rigid soils in the unsaturated zone. The Richards model remains the most widely accepted and fertile framework for water flow analyses. More general formulations are reserved for the analysis of problems involving macroporosity, thermal effects, and air pressure effects. Many exact and approximate solutions have been derived for particular boundary value problems of homogeneous soils using methods such as quasi-linear analysis, Green-Ampt analysis, perturbation, and the kinematic wave approximation. Numerical simulators have become bigger and more accurate due to improvements in the areas of nonlinear solution procedures, mass conservation, computational efficiency, and computer hardware. Problems of natural heterogeneity have been addressed primarily through application of various stochastic methods to the Richards model. The stochastic formulations generally refute the concept of simple equivalent homogeneous properties, but do themselves offer a certain limited potential for a predictive capability.     

Heat and mass transfer in unsaturated porous media at a hot boundary: I. One-dimensional analytical model

We present a model of heat and mass transfer in an unsaturated zone of sand and silty clay soils, taking into account the effects of temperature gradients on the advective flux, and of the enhancement of thermal conduction by the process of latent heat transfer through vapor flow. The motivation for this study is to supply information for the planned storage of thermal energy in unsaturated soils and for hot waste storage. Information is required on the possibility of significant drying at a hot boundary, as this would reduce the thermal conductivity of a layer adjacent to the boundary and, thus, prevent effective heat transfer to the soil. This study indicates the possibility that the considered system may be unstable, with respect to the drying conditions, with the occurrence of drying depending on the initial and the boundary conditions. An analysis performed for certain boundary conditions of heat transfer and for given soil properties, disregarding the advective flux of energy, indicated that there are initial conditions of water content for which heating will not cause significant drying. Under these conditions, fine soils may be better suited for heat transfer at the hot boundary, due to their higher field capacity, although their heat conduction coefficients at saturation are lower than those of sandy soils. At present, these conclusions are limited to the range of 50–80°C. Potential effects of solute concentration at the hot boundary are indicated.     

Numerical and experimental investigation of convective drying in unsaturated porous media with bound water

The heat and mass transfer in an unsaturated wet cylindrical porous bed packed with quartz particles was investigated theoretically for relatively low convective drying rates. Local thermodynamic equilibrium was assumed in the mathematical model describing the multi-phase flow in the unsaturated porous media using the energy and mass conservation equations to describe the heat and mass transfer during the drying. The drying model included convection and capillary transport of the free water, diffusion of bound water, and convection and diffusion of the gas. The numerical results indicated that the drying process could be divided into three periods, the temperature rise period, the constant drying rate period and the decreasing drying rate period. The numerical results agreed well with the experimental data verifying that the mathematical model can evaluate the drying performance of porous media for low drying rates. The effects of drying conditions such as the ambient temperature, the relative humidity, and the velocity of the drying air, on the drying process were evaluated by numerical solution.     

Almost analytic solutions and their tests of the horizontal diffusion equation for the movement of water in unsaturated soil

Itisalwaysdifficulttofindthesolutionsoftheequationforthemovementofwaterinunsaturatedsoi1.Theprimar}'reasonisthatthehydraulicconductivityK(T)orthediffusivityofsoiIwaterD(o)isfunctionofwaterpotential(W)orwatercontent'(o)'Atpresent,thegeneralwaystofindthesol…     

A hyperbolic mathematical modeling for describing the transition saturated/unsaturated in a rigid porous medium

This work proposes a mathematical model to study the filling up of an unsaturated porous medium by a liquid identifying the transition from unsaturated to saturated flow and allowing a small super saturation. As a consequence the problem remains hyperbolic even when saturation is reached. This important feature enables obtaining numerical solution for any initial value problem and allows employing Glimm’s scheme associated with an operator splitting technique for treating drag and viscous effects. A mixture theory approach is used to build the mechanical model, considering a mixture of three overlapping continuous constituents: a solid (porous medium), a liquid (Newtonian fluid) and a very low-density gas (to account for the mixture compressibility). The constitutive assumption proposed for the pressure gives rise to a continuous function of the fluid fraction. The complete solution of the Riemann problem associated with the system of conservation laws, as well as four examples, considering all the four possible connections, namely, 1-shock/2-shock, 1-rarefaction/2-rarefaction, 1-rarefaction/2-shock and 1-shock/2-rarefaction are presented.     

An analysis of species separation in a thermogravitational column filled with a porous medium

In the past, the analysis of species separation in a thermogravitational column filled with porous media has been based on strong dependency of thermal and molecular diffusion to dispersion. In this work, we suggest an alternative and show that the dispersion effect is negligible for the conditions in a packed hermogravitational column and that compositional dependency of the thermal diffusion should be accounted for.     

Finite element analysis of convective heat transfer in porous media

The finite element method is used to analyse convective heat transfer in a porous medium. Convection past a vertical surface embedded in the medium and convection in a confined porous medium enclosure are analysed using the above method. The results are compared with those available in the literature and the agreement is found to be good. The method is applicable for two-dimensional analysis in a porous body of any arbitrary shape. The restriction of the boundary layer assumption is relaxed.     

Enhancement of the critical heat flux in saturated pool boiling using honeycomb porous media

Enhancement of the critical heat flux in pool boiling by the attachment of a honeycomb-structured porous plate on a heated surface is investigated experimentally using water under saturated boiling conditions. As the height of the honeycomb porous plate on the heated surface decreases, the CHF increases to 2.5 MW/m², which is approximately 2.5 times that of a plain surface (1.0 MW/m²). Automatic liquid supply due to capillary action and reduction of the flow resistance for vapor escape due to the separation of liquid and vapor flow paths by the honeycomb-structure are verified to play an important role in the enhancement of the CHF. A simplified one-dimensional model for the capillary suction limit, in which the pressure drops due to liquid and vapor flow in the honeycomb porous plate balances the capillary force, is applied to predict the CHF. The calculated results are compared with the measured results.     

Measuring transport coefficients necessary for the description of coupled two-phase flow of immiscible fluids in porous media

In the simplist cases of coupled two-phase flow of immiscible fluids in porous media, the governing equations usually are written to show that there are four independent transport coefficients that implicitly have to be separately measured. The analysis presented here accordingly indicates that two types of known experiments involving two measurements apiece are needed at each fluid saturation condition in order to provide the necessary and sufficient information by which the unsteady as well as the steady states of ensuing transport processes can be established and characterized. Apparently, however, the fact that methodologies are already available for the required laboratory work either is not widely appreciated or it is being overlooked. For this reason and others, mention is made of the surprising fact that the experimental difficulties to be confronted in the actual study of coupled transport processes are no greater than those that have already been dealt with by the advocates of classical relative permeability theory (i.e. the traditionalists who simplistically model two-phase flow as though no coupling effects are involved).     

The propagation of a passive admixture from a local instantaneous source in a turbulent mixing zone

The propagation of a passive admixture from a local instantaneous source in a turbulent mixing zone in a stable stratified fluid (two-dimensional problem) is simulated numerically. The location of the source does not coincide with the center of the turbulent zone. The calculation results indicate that the average admixture concentration distribution depends significantly on the initial data. The location of the maximum concentration in homogeneous and linearly stratified fluid is fairly slowly displaced toward the center of the zone. Calculations in a pycnocline show that situations are possible when the propagation of a passive admixture is largely determined by a convective flow generated by the turbulent mixing zone.     

A Lattice Gas Automaton Simulation of the Nonlinear Diffusion Equation: A Model for Moisture Flow in Unsaturated Porous Media

We investigate a two-dimensional lattice gas automaton (LGA) for simulating the nonlinear diffusion equation in a random heterogeneous structure. The utilility of the LGA for computation of nonlinear diffusion arises from the fact that, the diffusion coefficient in the LGA depends on the local density of fluid particles which statistically determines the collision rate and thus, the mean free path of the particles at the microscopic scale. The LGA may therefore be used as a physical analogue to simulate moisture flow in unsaturated porous media. The capability of the LGA to account for unsaturated flow is tested through a set of numerical experiments simulating one-dimensional infiltration in a simplified semi-infinite homogenous isotropic porous material. Different mechanisms of interactions are used between the fluid and the solid phase to simulate various fluid–solid interfaces. The heterogeneous medium, initially at low density is submitted to a steep density gradient by continuously injecting fluid particles at high concentration and zero velocity along one face of the model. The propagation of the infiltration front is visualized at different time steps through concentration profiles parallel to the applied concentration gradient and the infiltration rate is measured continuously until steady-state flow is reached. The numerical results show close agreement with the classical theory of flow in unsaturated porous media. The cumulative absorption exhibits the expected t ^1/2 dependence. The evolution of the effective diffusion coefficient with the particle concentration is estimated from the measured density profiles for the various porous materials. Depending on the applied fluid–solid interactions, the macroscopic effective diffusivity may vary by more than two orders of magnitude with density.     

The effect of local thermal non-equilibrium on conduction in porous channels with a uniform heat source

We examine the effect of local thermal non-equilibrium on the steady state heat conduction in a porous layer in the presence of internal heat generation. A uniform source of heat is present in either the fluid or the solid phase. A two-temperature model is assumed and analytical solutions are presented for the resulting steady-state temperature profiles in a uniform porous slab. Attention is then focussed on deriving simple conditions which guarantee local thermal equilibrium.     

Heat and brine transport in porous media: the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation revisited

This paper discusses the Oberbeck-Boussinesq approximation for heat and solute transport in porous media. In this commonly used approximation all density variations are neglected except for the gravity term in Darcy’s law. However, in the limit of vanishing density differences this gravity term disappears as well. The main purpose of this paper is to give the correct limits in which the gravity term is retained, while other density effects can be neglected. We show that for isothermal brine transport, fluid volume changes can be neglected when a condition is fulfilled for a dimensionless number, which is independent of the density difference and specific discharge. For heat transfer an additional condition is required. One-dimensional examples of simultaneous heat and brine transport are given for which similarity solutions are constructed. These examples are included to elucidate the volume effects and the corresponding induced specific discharge variations. Finally, a two-dimensional example illustrates the relative effects of volume changes and gravity.     

Role of Molecular Diffusion in Contaminant Migration and Recovery in an Alluvial Aquifer System

Highly-resolved simulations and flow and transport in an alluvial system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) site explore the role of diffusion in the migration and recovery of a conservative solute. Heterogeneity is resolved to the hydrofacies scale with a discretization of 10.0, 5.0 and 0.5m in the strike, dip and vertical directions of the alluvial-fan system. Transport simulations rely on recently developed random-walk techniques that accurately account for local dispersion processes at interfaces between materials with contrasting hydraulic and transport properties. Solute migration and recovery by pump and treat are shown to be highly sensitive to magnitude of effective diffusion coefficient. Further, transport appears significantly more sensitive to the diffusion coefficient than to local-scale dispersion processes represented by a dispersivity coefficient. Predicted hold back of solute mass near source locations during ambient migration and pump-and-treat remediation is consistent with observations at LLNL, and reminiscent of observations at the MADE site of Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. Results confirm the important role of diffusion in low-conductivity materials and, consequently, its impact on efficacy of pump-and-treat and other remedial technologies. In a typical alluvial system on a decadal time scale this process is, in part, fundamentally nonreversible because the average thickness of low-K hydrofacies is considerably greater than the mean-square length of penetration of the solute plume.     

A perturbation-variational solution of the large deflection of rectangular plates under uniform load

In this paper, von Karman’s set of nonlinear equation for large deflection of rectangular plates is at first converted into several sets of linear equations by taking central dimensionless deflection as perturbation parameter, and then, the sets of linear equations for plates with various ratio λ of length to width are solved with application of variational method. The analytical expressions for displacements and stresses as well as formulas for numerical calculation are worked out. The figures of maximum deflection-load end maximum stress with ratio H of length to width as a parameter are given in this paper. Through comparison, it is found that the results of this paper are quite in accord with experiments.     

On the problem of fluid leakoff during hydraulic fracturing

While a hydraulic fracture is propagating, fluid flow and associated pressure drops must be accounted for both along the fracture path and perpendicularly, into the formation that is fractured, because of fluid leakoff. The accounting for the leakoff shows that it is the main factor that determines the crack length. The solved problem is useful for the technology of hydraulic fracturing and a good example of mass transport in a porous medium. To find an effective approach for the solution, the thin crack is represented here as the boundary condition for pore pressure spreading in the formation. Earlier such model was used for heat conduction into a rock massif from a seam under injection of hot water. Of course, the equations have other physical sense and mathematically they are somewhat different. The new plane solution is developed for a linearized form that permits the application of the integral transform. The linearization itself is analogous to the linearization of the natural gas equation using the real gas pseudo-pressure function and where the flux rates are held constant and approximations are introduced only into the time derivatives. The resulting analytical solution includes some integrals that can be calculated numerically. This provides rigorous tracking of the created fracture volume, leakoff volume and increasing fracture width. The solutions are an advance over existing discreet formulations and allow ready calculations of the resulting fracture dimensions during the injection of the fracturing fluid.     

Transport of Reacting Solutes Through the Unsaturated Zone

Unsaturated flows within subsurface regions control many large-scale hydrological and environmental processes. This contribution presents and discusses the results of numerical calculations dealing with the flow of water, the chemical reaction at the water-mineral interface and the transport of chemical species caused by such flows. The source of the water flow through the soil is solely the rainfall. The water motion is calculated for two different soil classes and for a typical annual precipitation. The codes which were used are based on the following model: The transport of chemical species is described by a set of partial differential equations, and the homogeneous chemical processes, under the assumption of equilibrium, are described by a set of nonlinear algebraic equations. The source terms of these partial differential equations are given by rate laws of the chemical weathering. Rainfall and chemical weathering are, therefore, the sources of the transport of reactive multispecies in this model.