This work examines some conditions under which contaminant transport in fractured porous rocks can be described by an equivalent porous medium (single continuum) model. For this purpose, a two‐dimensional mathematical and numerical model for flow and contaminant transport was developed. The model allows for contaminant transport by advection, diffusion, and dispersion in both fractures and porous blocks. Concentration distributions were calculated for different flow conditions and medium properties. The resulting S‐shaped breakthrough curves, characteristic of ordinary porous media, indicated the possibility of regarding the fractured porous medium as a single (equivalent) continuum. The results were compared to an existing analytical solution for contaminant movement in ordinary porous media. Analysis showed that within the range of considered parameter values, and except for the region close to the source, a single continuum model is sufficient for modelling the movement of contaminants. In such cases, application of the equivalent porous medium model is an actual field situation requires knowledge of the “equivalent” porosity and the equivalent coefficient of dispersion appearing in the governing transport equation. In practice, these coefficients must be determined by analysis of breakthrough curves obtained from field tests.
A model composed of a three-dimensional orthogonal network of capillary tubes was used to simulate the flow behavior in an unsaturated anisotropic soil. The anisotropy in the network's permeability was introduced by randomly selecting the radii in the three mutually orthogonal directions of the network tubes from three different lognormal probability distributions, one for each direction. These three directions were assumed to be the principal directions of anisotropy. The sample was gradually drained, with only tubes smaller than a certain diameter remaining full at each degree of saturation. Computer experiments were conducted to determine the network's effective permeability as a function of saturation. The main conclusion was that the relationship between saturation and effective permeability depends on direction. Consequently the concept of relative permeability used in unsaturated flow should be limited to isotropic media and not extended to anisotropic ones.
The results of an investigation on the effect of a weak heterogeneity of a porous medium on natural convection are presented. A medium heterogeneity is represented by spatial variations of the permeability and of the effective thermal conductivity. As a general rule the existence of horizontal thermal gradients in heterogeneous porous media provides a sufficient condition for the occurrence of natural convection. The implications of this condition are investigated for horizontal layers or rectangular domains subject to isothermal top and bottom boundary conditions. Results lead to a restriction on the classes of thermal conductivity functions which allow a motionless solution. Analytical solutions for rectangular weak heterogeneous porous domains heated from below, consistent with a basic motionless solution, are obtained by applying the weak nonlinear theory. The amplitude of the convection is obtained from an ordinary non-homogeneous differential equation, with a forcing term representative of the medium heterogeneity with respect to the effective thermal conductivity. A smooth transition through the critical Rayleigh number is obtained, thus removing a bifurcation which usually appears in homogeneous domains with perfect boundaries, at the critical value of the Rayleigh number. Within a certain range of slightly supercritical Rayleigh numbers, a symmetric thermal conductivity function is shown to reinforce a symmetrical flow while antisymmetric functions favour an antisymmetric flow. Except for the higher-order solutions, the weak heterogeneity with respect to permeability plays a relatively passive role and does not affect the solutions at the leading order. In contrast, the weak heterogeneity with respect to the effective thermal conductivity does have a significant effect on the resulting flow pattern.
The problem of infiltration at constant flux at the soil surface has been solved approximately in an analytical closed form. The solutions may be valuable to the practicing engineer when dealing with sprinkler irrigation or infiltration of rain. Infiltration into a semi‐infinite soil column as well as infiltration into a soil column of finite length with a constant water table were considered. Analytical and numerical results were compared for a few cases. It was found that the analytical solutions provide quite a satisfactory prediction of the moisture content at the soil surface and the advance of the wetting front. The results are presented in a dimensionless form; the analytical results are the same for all soils, and apparently the numerical results are also the same for all soils.
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