Pore Scale Simulation Of Fluid Flow And Colloid Transport In Porous Media
Abstract
The mechanisms and pathways for contaminant transport need to be defined accurately to facilitate our ability to prevent water resource contamination. Colloid facilitated transport is a significant transport mechanism for contaminants due to its capacity to carry contaminants without attenuation over long distances. The difficulties associated with observing this phenomenon within soils make the study of colloid facilitated transport complex and nearly unpredictable. It is thus that researchers need every clue to better understand the mechanisms behind colloid transport. The complicated nature of the governing equations, and the complex physical and chemical properties of porous media make modeling of colloid transport in porous media a challenging area of study in the soil and water sciences. Fortunately the rapid development in computer science and technology enables us to perform such calculations and simulate complicated environmental processes. In the study presented here, our aim is to simulate colloid transport mechanisms at the pore scale. Numerical solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations are derived for both saturated and unsaturated porous media using the commercial finite element software, COMSOL-MP-v3.2. Solutions are derived for both two- dimensional and three-dimensional domains with varying pore geometries in order to determine the best representative geometry within the limits of the computer program computer code. The main challenge in the study is the establishment of proper boundary conditions; especially for unsaturated conditions, where the air phase comes into play. In this poster we will show our progress in simulating the transport of colloids, and more specifically colloid retention at the Air-Water meniscus-Solid interface.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFM.H43A0478C
- Keywords:
-
- 1831 Groundwater quality;
- 1832 Groundwater transport;
- 1847 Modeling;
- 1875 Vadose zone;
- 4809 Colloids