Modelling microscale flow and colloid transport in saturated porous media

  • Authors:

  • Hui Gao;Jie Han;Yan Jin;Lian-Ping Wang

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA;Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA;Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA;Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics - Mesoscopic Methods And Their Applications To CFD
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

The microscale flow in soil porous media determines the transport of colloids contained in groundwater. In this paper, two completely different computational approaches, namely a mesoscopic lattice Boltzmann approach and a Navier-Stokes based hybrid approach, are applied to simulate pore-scale viscous flows. The porous medium is represented by a channel partially filled with circular (in 2D) or spherical (in 3D) particles. We demonstrate that the two approaches produce almost identical pore-scale flow field, providing a rigorous cross-validation for each approach. A Lagrangian particle-tracking approach is then used to study the transport of colloids in these flows. Due to the competing effects of hydrodynamic forces and electro-chemical interactions, it is shown that enhanced removal of colloids from the fluid by solid surfaces occurs when the residence time of colloids in a given flow passage is increased, in qualitative agreement with pore-scale visualisation experiments using confocal microscopy.