An investigation of the effect of diffusivity on the transport and spread of contaminants in groundwater systems
- Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR (United States). Mechanical Engineering Dept.
Contaminant transport in groundwater is modeled using an advection diffusion equation. The diffusion component of the model is due to molecular diffusion and advection through the flow passages in the soil matrix which are smaller than the resolvable length scales. In addition to the physical diffusion, the advection/diffusion equation requires a certain amount of diffusion for the governing equations to be stable. If there is insufficient physical diffusion the cell Peclet number is less than 2 and oscillations in the solution occur. Balance numerical diffusion must be supplied for a stable solution. Numerical simulations of contaminant transport in groundwater flows must therefore include accurate models of as many of three forms of diffusion. One represents the subscale fluid path diffusion (either tensor, vector, or scalar in form), another is the scalar molecular diffusion (scalar), and the numerical stabilizing diffusion (again either tensor, vector, or scalar in form). The final result must reasonably model contaminant spread and transport for the predictions to be useful. In the literature, measurements of contaminant diffusivity are usually made using one dimensional experiments. Because of the dependence on higher level models to capture all of the physics in contaminant transport, it is to validate these models using realistic multidimensional geometries with comparisons to experimental data. Here, the effects of different diffusion models are examined and compared for two important cases. The first is a contaminant plume originating at the surface and extracted at a drain. The second case is an isolated region of contamination which is advected and diffused towards the drain. In the second case, qualitative comparisons can be made with limited visualization data. These results will eventually be used with a comprehensive experimental program to validate models of diffusion transport.
- OSTI ID:
- 489031
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970146--; ISBN 1-890277-04-5
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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