Study of Scale and Time Dependent Parameters for Reactive Solute Transport through Stratified Porous Media

2018 Groundwater Week

Deepak Swami, Abhay Guleria, & ABHIMANYU SHARMA

2018-12-03

In this study, better simulation of observed experimental data for reactive solute transport through stratified porous media is intended. Effectiveness of distance and time dependent dispersion (TDD) to simulate fate of sorbing solute is compared to fulfill this objective. A physical and chemical-non-equilibrium (MPNE) model is used to capture this phenomenon to account for heterogeneity and site specific sorption in subsurface soil medium. Nonlinear least square optimization algorithm is used to estimate transport parameters. For a better resolution during breakthrough and tailing portion, semi-log plots are used to characterize the time scale simulation. Experiment data of reactive solute (fluoride) transport reported in Swami et al. (2016) is used for comparative analysis. It is observed that MPNE with TDD simulate experimental results with higher accuracy compared to distance dependent dispersion, especially in breakthrough and tailing portions. Parameters estimation algorithm resulted lesser values of effective dispersion and first order diffusive mass transfer for TDD. While higher values of effective dispersion and mass transfer coefficient for distance dependent dispersion identifies an overestimation in solute spreading for identical transport processes.