Solute transport in unsaturated porous media with spatially correlated disorder

Ali Saeibehrouzi, Ran Holtzman, Petr Denissenko, Soroush Abolfathi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)
16 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Solute transport in unsaturated porous media is of interest in many engineering and environmental applications. The interplay between small-scale, local forces and the porous microstructure exerts a strong control on the transport of fluids and solutes at the larger, macroscopic scales. Heterogeneity in pore geometry is intrinsic to natural materials across a large range of scales. This multiscale nature, and the intricate links between two-phase flow and solute transport, remain far from well understood, by and large. Here, we use high-resolution direct simulation to quantify solute mixing and dispersion behavior within correlated porous media during drainage under an unfavorable viscosity ratio. Through analysis of flow and transport at multiple realizations, we find that increasing spatial correlations in pore sizes increase the size of the required Representative Elementary Volume (REV). We show that increasing the correlation length enhances solute dispersivity through its impact on the spatial distribution of low-velocity (diffusion-dominated) and high-velocity (advection-dominated) regions. Fluid saturation is shown to directly affect diffusive mass flux among high- and low-velocity zones. Another indirect effect of correlated heterogeneity on solute transport is through its control of the drainage patterns via repeated alteration in the connectivity of flowing pathways. Our findings improve quantitative understanding of solute mixing and dispersion under two-phase conditions, highly relevant to some of our most urgent environmental problems.
Original languageEnglish
Article number104773
Number of pages15
JournalAdvances in Water Resources
Volume191
Early online date19 Jul 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024

Bibliographical note

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Funder

The authors acknowledge resources and support from the Scientific Computing Research Technology Platform (SCRTP) at the University of Warwick, UK, and the Faculty of Engineering, Environment and Computing HPC facility at Coventry University, UK. RH acknowledges support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, United Kingdom (EP/V050613/1). SA acknowledges support from the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution programme funded by the UK government Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) (IATI reference number GB-GOV-1-30012).

Keywords

  • Correlated disorder
  • Direct simulation
  • Fluid–fluid displacement
  • Pore-scale modeling
  • Stagnant zones
  • Unsaturated transport

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Water Science and Technology

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