Mechanisms, Upscaling, and Prediction of Anomalous Dispersion in Heterogeneous Porous Media

We study the upscaling and prediction of large-scale solute dispersion in heterogeneous porous media with focus on preasymptotic or anomalous features such as tailing in breakthrough curves and spatial concentration profiles as well as nonlinear evolution of the spatial variance of the concentration...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Comolli, Alessandro, Hakoun, V., Dentz, Marco
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/198338
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/198338
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Dispersion
Upscaling
Continuous time random walks
non-Fickian transport
Time domain random walks
Heterogeneous media
Descripción
Sumario:We study the upscaling and prediction of large-scale solute dispersion in heterogeneous porous media with focus on preasymptotic or anomalous features such as tailing in breakthrough curves and spatial concentration profiles as well as nonlinear evolution of the spatial variance of the concentration distribution. Spatial heterogeneity in the hydraulic medium properties is represented in a stochastic modeling approach. Direct numerical Monte Carlo simulations of flow and advective particle motion combined with a Markov model for streamwise particle velocities give insight in the mechanisms of preasymptotic and asymptotic solute transport in terms of the statistical signatures of the medium and flow heterogeneity. Based on the representation of equidistantly sampled particle velocities as a Markov process, we derive an upscaled continuous time random walk approach that can be conditioned on the flow velocities and thus hydraulic conductivity in the injection region. In this modeling framework, we identify the Eulerian velocity distribution, advective tortuosity, and the correlation length of particle velocities as the key quantities for large-scale transport prediction. Thus, the upscaled model predicts the spatial concentration profiles, their first and second centered moments, and the breakthrough curves obtained from direct numerical Monte Carlo simulations in spatially heterogeneous conductivity fields. The presented approach allows to relate the medium and flow properties to large-scale preasymptotic and asymptotic solute dispersion. ©2019. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.