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journal article Oct 01, 2014

Solute transport in low‐heterogeneity sandboxes: The role of correlation length and permeability variance

Peyman Heidari Li Li ORCID
Water Resources Research Vol. 50 No. 10 pp. 8240-8264 · American Geophysical Union (AGU)
View at Publisher Save 10.1002/2013wr014654
Abstract
AbstractThis work examines how heterogeneity structure, in particular correlation length, controls flow and solute transport. We used two‐dimensional (2D) sandboxes (21.9 cm × 20.6 cm) and four modeling approaches, including 2D Advection‐Dispersion Equation (ADE) with explicit heterogeneity structure, 1D ADE with average properties, and nonlocal Continuous Time Random Walk (CTRW) and fractional ADE (fADE). The goal is to answer two questions: (1) how and to what extent does correlation length control effective permeability and breakthrough curves (BTC)? (2) Which model can best reproduce data under what conditions? Sandboxes were packed with the same 20% (v/v) fine and 80% (v/v) coarse sands in three patterns that differ in correlation length. The Mixed cases contain uniformly distributed fine and coarse grains. The Four‐zone and One‐zone cases have four and one square fine zones, respectively. A total of seven experiments were carried out with permeability variance of 0.10 (LC), 0.22 (MC), and 0.43 (HC). Experimental data show that the BTC curves depend strongly on correlation length, especially in the HC cases. The HC One‐zone (HCO) case shows distinct breakthrough steps arising from fast advection in the coarse zone, slow advection in the fine zone, and slow diffusion, while the LCO and MCO BTCs do not exhibit such behavior. With explicit representation of heterogeneity structure, 2D ADE reproduces BTCs well in all cases. CTRW reproduces temporal moments with smaller deviation from data than fADE in all cases except HCO, where fADE has the lowest deviation.
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References
114
[45]
Fetter C. W. (1999)
[50]
Gelhar L. W. (1993)

Showing 50 of 114 references

Metrics
55
Citations
114
References
Details
Published
Oct 01, 2014
Vol/Issue
50(10)
Pages
8240-8264
License
View
Authors
P
Peyman Heidari

John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering Penn State University University Park Pennsylvania USA

L
Li Li

John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering Penn State University University Park Pennsylvania USA; Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, Penn State University University Park Pennsylvania USA; EMS Energy Institute, Penn State University University Park Pennsylvania USA

Funding
Department of Energy Office of Sciences Subsurface Biogeochemical Research (SBR) Award: DE-FOA-0000311
Cite This Article
Peyman Heidari, Li Li (2014). Solute transport in low‐heterogeneity sandboxes: The role of correlation length and permeability variance. Water Resources Research, 50(10), 8240-8264. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013wr014654
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