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UNIT 5 -- ANALYTICAL TRANSPORT MODELING:

I am assuming that you learned the basic principles of contaminant transport in your basic ground-water hydrology class. Relevant material includes: advection, dispersion, decay, adsorption, and chemical reaction. This course will only consider modeling the transport of trace constituents in single phase liquids in the saturated zone as influenced by the processes of advection, dispersion, decay and retardation. If you are not familiar with these topics, I recommend that you study this material by reading the appropriate chapter(s) in your basic text. Alternatively you could study the first 3 Chapters of Zheng and Bennett (one of the optional texts for this course); Fetter's 1999 book entitled Contaminant Hydrogeology, ISBN 0-13-751215-5; Domenico and Schwartz's 1998 book, Physical and Chemical Hydrogeology, ISBN 0-471-59762-7; or many other geohydrology texts.

The OBJECTIVE of UNIT 5 is for you to:

* BECOME FAMILIAR with some ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT

* APPLY THE CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES DISCUSSED IN PREVIOUS SECTIONS ON FLOW MODELING TO CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT MODELING


DISCUSSION

For the limited range (transport of trace constituents in single phase liquids in the saturated zone as influenced by the processes of advection, dispersion, decay and retardation) of analytical solutions considered in this course, you must first evaluate the dimensionality of the problem (1, 2, or 3D), the character of the source (slug or continuous), and whether a steady or transient solution is needed. Again there may be some situations for which a steady state solution is not relevant. Study the analytical solutions presented on the contaminant transport analytical solution main page. Think about the parameters that control the progress of the solution, underlying assumptions, the value of results obtained using these solutions and the errors that might be introduced by applying these solutions to a field problem. Then move on to undertake some calculations using these solutions in the exercises of Unit 5.

CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT ANALYTICAL SOLUTION MAIN PAGE

EXERCISES

If you chose to purchase Applied Contaminant Transport Modeling,
read Chapters 2, 3, & 4

Then undertake the following exercises for unit 5:

EXERCISE EXPLORING 1D CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT, SLUG SOURCE

EXERCISE EXPLORING 1D CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT, CONTINUOUS SOURCE

EXERCISE EXPLORING 3D CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT, CONTINUOUS SOURCE

EXERCISE EXPLORING 3D CONTAMINANT TRANSPORT, CONTINUOUS SOURCE WITH SORPTION AND DECAY


For the 3D spreading continuous source with sorption and decay, explain why the concentration changes as it does for an increase and decrease of each parameter on the slider bar menu (please include extremes where you would expect the solution to revert to a simpler solution, compare extreme values that would represent 1D in the 3D equation). Where possible, determine the physical reasons why the graph changes as it does. I say "where possible" because some of the observations you make may be due to the way the program is coded. Such aspects are generally not explained in program manuals and one needs to deduce these from their observations of code performance. Be sure you understand what you are viewing both in the curves and on the bar at the bottom of the window and use that knowledge in your description. Explain what you think is wrong (if anything) with the behavior of the applet. Use complete sentences and be as concise as possible. If you have questions, email them to me. epoeter@mines.edu


COMMUNICATION

If you choose, send email with your questions, thoughts and comments regarding analytical contaminant transport modeling and the answers you obtained during the exercises. epoeter@mines.edu



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