|
|
|
|
Department of Energy --
Environmental Remediation Sciences
Program |
|
Integrated Hydrogeophysical and
Hydrogeologic Driven Parameter Upscaling for Dual Domain Transport
Modeling
|
|
|
|
|
Dual Domain Transport Modeling
|
For
field-scale transport through
unconsolidated sediments, small-scale
advection likely controls mass
transfer between "mobile" and
"immobile" regions. Adequate
mechanistic approaches for defining
optimal dual-domain parameter values
in this setting have not been
developed and/or validated. Our
objective is to relate mobile-immobile
region partitioning and the
first-order mass transfer coefficient
to readily characterized system
parameters, such as facies and
permeability distributions and
hydrologic conditions. We hypothesize
that such relationships exist and can
be developed from a series of
carefully designed numerical
experiments.
To illustrate the
feasibility of the concept, consider a
perfectly layered system comprised of
high and low permeability intervals,
with a mean hydraulic gradient not
parallel to the bedding planes. In
this situation, flow in high
conductivity zones is mostly parallel
to the bedding, while flow in the low
permeability zones is roughly normal.
In the context of a two-region model, advective transport into and out of
the low conductivity “immobile”
regions plus diffusion is described by
Equation (1), which could provide a
mechanistic basis for choosing an
optimal two-region mass transfer
coefficient. |
|
Under more
realistic conditions, we anticipate a
more complex relationship than
Equation (1), but nonetheless one that
can be deduced from numerical
experimentation. We intend to perform
such experiments and then validate (or
invalidate) the inferred “optimal”
dual-domain parameter settings through
comparison to concentration data
acquired from both high (mobile) and
low (immobile) conductivity intervals
at the P-Area Reactor field site.
|
Equation 1 |
|
|
|
|
Page
maintained by:
Mark Evans, Last update:
April 10, 2008
Copy right @ 2001 University of South Carolina Board of Trustees
|
|
