Linking reaction, transport, and hydrological parameters inunsaturated fractured rock: toughreact implementation andapplication
Modeling coupled water-gas-rock interactions in unsaturated fractured rock requires conceptual and numerical model considerations beyond those developed for saturated porous media. This paper focuses on the integration of the geological and hydrological parameters into the calculation of reactive-transport parameters and the feedback of mineral precipitation/dissolution to flow and transport. These basic relations have been implemented in the reactive transport code TOUGHREACT (Xu et al., 2003) that couples equilibrium and kinetic water-gas-rock inter-actions with multiphase flow and aqueous and gaseous species transport. Simulation results are presented illustrating the effects of water-rock interaction accompanying the heating of unsaturated heterogeneous fractured tuff. Unknowns associated with modeling water-rock interaction in fractured unsaturated systems are the area of the fracture surface that is wetted and which fractures are active components of the overall flow system. The wetted fracture area is important not only to water-rock interaction but to flow and transport between fluids flowing in fractures and the adjacent matrix. The other unknown relations are those describing permeability and capillary pressure modification during mineral precipitation and dissolution. Here we discuss solely the relations developed for fractures and the fracture-matrix interface.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 923405
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-60717; R&D Project: 0; BnR: YN0100000; TRN: US200804%%1108
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: TOUGH Symposium 2003, Berkeley, California, May2003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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