Efficacy of Permeable Reactive Barriers in Mitigating Tetrachloroethene Ingress into Highway Drainage Concrete Pipe in Saturated Media
Publication: Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 14, Issue 2
Abstract
Work herein is focused on evaluating factors affecting tetrachloroethene (PCE) contaminant ingress into the subsurface concrete pipe embedded in the saturated soil profile and assessing the efficacy of permeable reactive barriers (PRB) in mitigating PCE concentration. A three-dimensional groundwater flow and solute transport numerical model is established using MODFLOW paired with reactive transport (RT3D) software, in which the model is developed using a finite-difference numerical scheme. The analyses parameters are developed from data for a site in Wilson, North Carolina, at which subsurface chlorinated organic solvents from a dry-cleaning facility occurred in the presence of subsurface highway concrete drainage pipe. Modeling results after 10 years of simulation period indicated that the natural attenuation process taking place in the native soils with coefficients of , and reduced the PCE concentrations breaking through the concrete pipe by 30.7% and 34.1%, respectively. On the other hand, with a greater percent of the soil sorption as manifested by organic carbon content, the PCE concentration breaking through the pipe increased by 137% for the same simulation period as a result of the prolonged presence of PCE concentration within the pipe trench. The hydraulic conductivity of the PRB () modestly affects the level of PCE breaking through the pipe, while the increase in thickness of the PRB was found to be the most effective in decreasing the level of PCE ingress into the pipe.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article. Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This study is supported via funding from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University project number (PSAU/2023/R/1444). In addition, the authors would like to acknowledge the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) for supporting this work.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice
Volume 14 • Issue 2 • May 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 22, 2022
Accepted: Jan 9, 2023
Published online: Mar 3, 2023
Published in print: May 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Aug 3, 2023
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