Simulation of two- and three-dimensional dense solute plume behavior with the the METROPOL-3 code

Conference · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994

OSTI ID:10176812

Oostrom, M; Roberson, K R ^[1]; Leijnse, A ^[2]

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1. Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
2. Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieuhygiene, Bilthoven (Netherlands)

Contaminant plumes emanating from waste disposal facilities are often denser than the ambient groundwater. These so-called dense plumes sink deeper into phreatic aquifers and may, under certain conditions, become unstable. The behavior of variable density, aqueous-phase contaminant plumes in saturated, homogeneous 2-D and 3-D intermediate-scale aquifer models was investigated with the finite element code METROPOL-3. The numerical results compare, in a quantitative sense, to previously reported laboratory-scale transport experiments. The simulations show that dense plumes are more likely to penetrate deeper into aquifers and eventually become unstable with increasing density differences between the leachate solution and the ambient groundwater, and other important parameters as the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the porous medium, leakage-rate of the contaminant solution, and source width. The significance of unstable behavior decreases with increasing dispersivity values. It was observed that 3-D flow patterns have a stable effect on sense contaminant plume behavior.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 10176812
• Report Number(s): PNL-SA--23806; CONF-940742--8; ON: DE94017461
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540220
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200
CHEMICALS MONITORING AND TRANSPORT
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
GROUND WATER
LIQUID WASTES
M CODES
MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTERS
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PLUMES
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS