A simulation of large‐scale groundwater flow and travel time in a fractured rock environment for waste disposal purposes

Ophori, Duke

doi:10.1002/hyp.1407

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In Tóth′ s [] study, it was proposed for the first time that under certain conditions the water table follows the topography, consequently, the topography can be used as a proxy for the water table by way of a specified head boundary to calculate the flow field. This approach has its advantages, and has been adopted by many researchers [e.g., Lazear , ; Low et al ., ; Marklund and Wörman , ; Ophori , ; Wörman et al ., ]. In fact, due to limited recharge and/or high permeability, it is entirely possible that water table is shallower than the topography [ Haitjema and Mitchell‐Bruker , ; Wolock and Price , ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analytical study on artesian flow conditions in unconfined‐aquifer drainage basins

Wang

Jiang

Wan

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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Although it has been reported that flowing artesian wells could be topographically controlled, there is no quantitative research on artesian flow conditions in unconfined aquifers. In this study, the water table, which has a lower amplitude than the land surface, is damped from the topography and used as the boundary condition to obtain the analytical solution of hydraulic head of a unit basin with a single flow system. The term artesian head is defined to characterize the condition of flowing artesian wells. The zone with positive artesian head is called artesian zone while with negative artesian head is nonartesian zone. The maximum artesian head and the size of artesian zones are found to increase with the damping factor and the anisotropy ratio, and decrease with the ratio of basin width to depth and the depth‐decay exponent of hydraulic conductivity. Moreover, the artesian head increases with depth nearby the valley and decreases with depth near by the divide, and the variation rates are influenced by the decay exponent and the anisotropy ratio. Finally, the distribution of flowing artesian wells and the artesian head measurements in different depths of a borehole in a small catchment in the Ordos Plateau, Northwestern China is used to illustrate the theoretical findings. The change in artesian head with depth was used to estimate the anisotropy ratio and the decay exponent. This study opens up a new door to analyze basin‐scale groundwater flow.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analytical study on artesian flow conditions in unconfined‐aquifer drainage basins

Wang

Jiang

Wan

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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“…One example of the latter arises from nuclear fuel waste heat generation, which renders the study of variable-density flow relevant to performance assessment analyses (e.g. Ophori 2004;Yang & Edwards 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variable-density flow in porous media

et al. 2006

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Steady-state distributions of water potential and salt concentration in coastal aquifers are typically modelled by the Henry problem, which consists of a fully coupled system of flow and transport equations. Coupling arises from the dependence of water density on salt concentration. The physical behaviour of the system is fully described by two dimensionless groups: (i) the coupling parameter α, which encapsulates the relative importance of buoyancy and viscous forces, and (ii) the Péclet number Pe, which quantifies the relative importance of purely convective and dispersive transport mechanisms. We provide a systematic analytical analysis of the Henry problem for a full range of the Péclet number. For moderate Pe, analytical solutions are obtained through perturbation expansions in α. This allows us to elucidate the onset of density-driven vertical flux components and the dependence of the local hydraulic head gradients on the coupling parameter. The perturbation solution identifies the regions where salt concentration is most pronounced and relates their spatial extent to the development of a convection cell. Next, we compare our solution to a solution of the pseudo-coupled model, wherein flow and transport are coupled only via the boundary conditions. This enables us to isolate the effects caused by density-dependent processes from those induced by external forcings (boundary conditions). For small Pe, we develop a perturbation expansion around the exact solution corresponding to Pe = 0, which sheds new light on the interpretation of processes observed in diffusion experiments with variable-density flows in porous media. The limiting case of infinite Péclet numbers is solved exactly for the pseudo-coupled model and compared to numerical simulations of the fully coupled problem for large Pe. The proposed perturbation approach is applicable to a wide range of variable-density flows in porous media, including seawater intrusion into coastal aquifers and temperature or pressure-driven density flows in deep aquifers.

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Multi-scale groundwater flow modeling during temperate climate conditions for the safety assessment of the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository site at Forsmark, Sweden

et al. 2014

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A simulation of large‐scale groundwater flow and travel time in a fractured rock environment for waste disposal purposes

Cited by 9 publications

References 13 publications

An analytical study on artesian flow conditions in unconfined‐aquifer drainage basins

An analytical study on artesian flow conditions in unconfined‐aquifer drainage basins

Variable-density flow in porous media

Multi-scale groundwater flow modeling during temperate climate conditions for the safety assessment of the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository site at Forsmark, Sweden

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