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Title: Impact of velocity correlation and distribution on transport in fractured media: Field evidence and theoretical model

Journal Article · · Water Resources Research
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR015799· OSTI ID:1557838
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [1]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Univ. de Rennes (France)
  3. Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona (Spain). Inst. of Environmental Assessment and Water Research

Flow and transport through fractured geologic media often leads to anomalous (non-Fickian) transport behavior, the origin of which remains a matter of debate: whether it arises from variability in fracture permeability (velocity distribution), connectedness in the flow paths through fractures (velocity correlation), or interaction between fractures and matrix. Here we show that this uncertainty of distribution- versus correlation-controlled transport can be resolved by combining convergent and push-pull tracer tests because flow reversibility is strongly dependent on velocity correlation, whereas late-time scaling of breakthrough curves is mainly controlled by velocity distribution. We build on this insight, and propose a Lagrangian statistical model that takes the form of a continuous time random walk (CTRW) with correlated particle velocities. In this framework, velocity distribution and velocity correlation are quantified by a Markov process of particle transition times that is characterized by a distribution function and a transition probability. Our transport model accurately captures the anomalous behavior in the breakthrough curves for both push-pull and convergent flow geometries, with the same set of parameters. Thus, the proposed correlated CTRW modeling approach provides a simple yet powerful framework for characterizing the impact of velocity distribution and correlation on transport in fractured media.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0003907
OSTI ID:
1557838
Journal Information:
Water Resources Research, Vol. 51, Issue 2; ISSN 0043-1397
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 113 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Effective Models for Transport in Complex Heterogeneous Hydrologic Systems book January 2019
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Time and Space Fractional Diffusion in Finite Systems journal March 2018
Temporal Markov Processes for Transport in Porous Media: Random Lattice Networks journal May 2018
Trajectories as Training Images to Simulate Advective‐Diffusive, Non‐Fickian Transport journal April 2019
A Flexible Temporal Velocity Model for Fast Contaminant Transport Simulations in Porous Media journal October 2018
Iron-oxidizer hotspots formed by intermittent oxic–anoxic fluid mixing in fractured rocks journal January 2020
Pore-scale velocities in three-dimensional porous materials with trapped immiscible fluid journal October 2019
Solvable continuous-time random walk model of the motion of tracer particles through porous media journal August 2016
Prediction of the low-velocity distribution from the pore structure in simple porous media journal December 2017
Anomalous dispersion in correlated porous media: a coupled continuous time random walk approach journal September 2017
Dipole and Convergent Single-Well Thermal Tracer Tests for Characterizing the Effect of Flow Configuration on Thermal Recovery journal October 2019
Application of Tempered-Stable Time Fractional-Derivative Model to Upscale Subdiffusion for Pollutant Transport in Field-Scale Discrete Fracture Networks journal January 2018
Fractional governing equations of transient groundwater flow in confined aquifers with multi-fractional dimensions in fractional time journal January 2017
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Temporal Markov Processes for Transport in Porous Media: Random Lattice Networks text January 2017

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