skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Implementation and evaluation of permeability-porosity and tortuosity-porosity relationships linked to mineral dissolution-precipitation

Journal Article · · Computational Geosciences
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [6]
  1. The Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver (Canada)
  2. BRGM, Orleans Cedex (France)
  3. Univ. of Bern, Bern (Switzerland)
  4. Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK. CEN, Mol (Belgium)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  6. Univ. of California, Riverside, CA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Changes of porosity, permeability, and tortuosity due to physical and geochemical processes are of vital importance for a variety of hydrogeological systems, including passive treatment facilities for contaminated groundwater, engineered barrier systems (EBS), and host rocks for high-level nuclear waste (HLW) repositories. Due to the nonlinear nature and chemical complexity of the problem, in most cases, it is impossible to verify reactive transport codes analytically, and code intercomparisons are the most suitable method to assess code capabilities and model performance. This paper summarizes model intercomparisons for six hypothetical scenarios with generally increasing geochemical or physical complexity using the reactive transport codes CrunchFlow, HP1, MIN3P, PFlotran, and TOUGHREACT. Benchmark problems include the enhancement of porosity and permeability through mineral dissolution, as well as near complete clogging due to localized mineral precipitation, leading to reduction of permeability and tortuosity. Processes considered in the benchmark simulations are advective-dispersive transport in saturated media, kinetically controlled mineral dissolution-precipitation, and aqueous complexation. Porosity changes are induced by mineral dissolution-precipitation reactions, and the Carman-Kozeny relationship is used to describe changes in permeability as a function of porosity. Archie’s law is used to update the tortuosity and the pore diffusion coefficient as a function of porosity. Results demonstrate that, generally, good agreement is reached amongst the computer models despite significant differences in model formulations. As a result, some differences are observed, in particular for the more complex scenarios involving clogging; however, these differences do not affect the interpretation of system behavior and evolution.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1579831
Journal Information:
Computational Geosciences, Vol. 19, Issue 3; ISSN 1420-0597
Publisher:
SpringerCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 49 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (24)

Numerical simulation of pore space clogging in geothermal reservoirs by precipitation of anhydrite journal October 2005
TOUGHREACT Version 2.0: A simulator for subsurface reactive transport under non-isothermal multiphase flow conditions journal June 2011
Modelling the long-term effect of irrigation with gypsiferous water on soil and water resources journal November 1999
Modelling coupled water flow, solute transport and geochemical reactions affecting heavy metal migration in a podzol soil journal June 2008
Influence of reaction kinetics and mesh refinement on the numerical modelling of concrete/clay interactions journal January 2009
Reactive transport codes for subsurface environmental simulation journal September 2014
Solution of the MoMaS reactive transport benchmark with MIN3P—model formulation and simulation results journal September 2009
TOUGHREACT User's Guide: A Simulation Program for Non-isothermal Multiphase Reactive geochemical Transport in Variable Saturated Geologic Media report May 2004
Multicomponent reactive transport modeling in variably saturated porous media using a generalized formulation for kinetically controlled reactions: REACTIVE TRANSPORT MODELING IN VARIABLY SATURATED MEDIA journal September 2002
Goodbye, Hazen; Hello, Kozeny-Carman journal November 2003
Coupled reaction-flow modeling of diagenetic changes in reservoir permeability, porosity and mineral compositions journal August 1998
Conceptual model analysis of interaction at a concrete–Boom Clay interface journal January 2014
Changes in Hydrologic Properties of Aquifer Media Due to Chemical Reactions: A Review journal October 2001
Interrelationships between biological, chemical, and physical processes as an analog to clogging in aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) wells journal May 2000
Coupled modeling of cement/claystone interactions and radionuclide migration journal February 2004
A class of analytical solutions for multidimensional multispecies diffusive transport coupled with precipitation-dissolution reactions and porosity changes: ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR DIFFUSIVE TRANSPORT journal March 2012
Comparison of numerical methods for simulating strongly nonlinear and heterogeneous reactive transport problems—the MoMaS benchmark case journal March 2010
Modeling Coupled Hydrologic and Chemical Processes: Long-Term Uranium Transport following Phosphorus Fertilization journal January 2008
Operator-splitting-based reactive transport models in strong feedback of porosity change: The contribution of analytical solutions for accuracy validation and estimator improvement journal March 2010
Chemical reactions and porosity changes during sedimentary diagenesis journal January 2002
Exact analytical solutions for a diffusion problem coupled with a precipitation-dissolution reaction and feedback of porosity change: EXACT ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR DIFFUSION PROBLEM journal July 2011
Permeability of porous solids journal January 1961
Iron oxide incrustations in wells. Part 1: genesis, mineralogy and geochemistry journal June 2003
TOUGHREACT—A simulation program for non-isothermal multiphase reactive geochemical transport in variably saturated geologic media: Applications to geothermal injectivity and CO2 geological sequestration journal March 2006

Cited By (9)

Reactive transport benchmarks for subsurface environmental simulation journal June 2015
Porosity–Permeability Relations for Evolving Pore Space: A Review with a Focus on (Bio-)geochemically Altered Porous Media journal May 2018
Mineral precipitation-induced porosity reduction and its effect on transport parameters in diffusion-controlled porous media journal September 2015
Combination of MRI and SEM to Assess Changes in the Chemical Properties and Permeability of Porous Media due to Barite Precipitation text January 2020
Recent Developments and Applications of the HYDRUS Computer Software Packages journal January 2016
Simulating the Fate and Transport of Coal Seam Gas Chemicals in Variably-Saturated Soils Using HYDRUS journal May 2017
Combination of MRI and SEM to Assess Changes in the Chemical Properties and Permeability of Porous Media due to Barite Precipitation journal February 2020
Mineral precipitation-induced porosity reduction and its effect on transport parameters in diffusion-controlled porous media text January 2015
Impact of carbonation on unsaturated water transport properties of cement-based materials journal August 2015

Similar Records

TOUGHREACT User's Guide: A Simulation Program for Non-isothermal Multiphase Reactive geochemical Transport in Variable Saturated Geologic Media
Technical Report · Mon May 24 00:00:00 EDT 2004 · OSTI ID:1579831
+1 more
TOUGHREACT User's Guide: A Simulation Program for Non-isothermal Multiphase Reactive Geochemical Transport in Variably Saturated Geologic Media, V1.2.1
Technical Report · Mon Sep 29 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · OSTI ID:1579831
+1 more
Numerical investigation of Lower Tuscaloosa Sandstone and Selma Chalk caprock under geological CO 2 sequestration conditions: mineral precipitation and permeability evolution
Journal Article · Mon Jul 24 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology · OSTI ID:1579831

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
Permeability-porosity relationship
Tortuosity-porosity relationship
Mineral dissolution-precipitation
Benchmark
CrunchFlow
HP1
MIN3P
PFlotran
TOUGHREACT