Temporal Moments for Reactive Transport through Fractured Impermeable/Permeable Formations
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 17, Issue 12
Abstract
The transport of reactive solutes through fractured porous formations has been analyzed. The transport through the porous block is represented by a general multiprocess nonequilibrium equation (MPNE), which, for the fracture, is represented by an advection-dispersion equation with linear equilibrium sorption and first-order transformation. An implicit finite-difference technique has been used to solve the two coupled equations. The transport characteristics have been analyzed in terms of zeroth, first, and second temporal moments of the solute in the fracture. The solute behavior for fractured impermeable and fractured permeable formations are first compared and the effects of various fracture and matrix transport parameters are analyzed. Subsequently, the transport through a fractured permeable formation is analyzed to ascertain the effect of equilibrium sorption, rate-limited sorption, and the multiprocess nonequilibrium transport process. It was found that the temporal moments were nearly identical for the fractured impermeable and permeable formations when both the diffusion coefficient and the first-order transformation coefficient were relatively large. The multiprocess nonequilibrium model resulted in a smaller mass recovery in the fracture and higher dispersion than the equilibrium and rate-limited sorption models.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 17 • Issue 12 • December 2012
Pages: 1302 - 1314
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 22, 2011
Accepted: Jan 9, 2012
Published online: Jan 12, 2012
Published in print: Dec 1, 2012
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