Study on non-Fickian behavior for solute transport through porous media

ABSTRACT

In this study, fractional advection-dispersion equation is used to model the conservative solute transport through porous media. Explicit finite difference method has been used to solve the spatial fractional advection dispersion equation. Observed concentration profiles of chloride tracer have been obtained through soil column experiments in the lab. Both advection-dispersion and spatial fractional advection dispersion models have been used to simulate observed concentration profile at various distances in the flow direction. Results indicate that the variation in the value of root mean square error is observed in the case of both homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media. Non-Fickian behavior is more in case of heterogeneous media as compared to homogeneous media. Finally, results indicate that the better simulation has been obtained from spatial fractional advection-dispersion equation model as compared to advection-dispersion equation model in case of heterogeneous porous media.

KEYWORDS:

• Finite difference method
• non-Fickian transport
• homogeneous and heterogeneous media
• fractional advection-dispersion
• concentration profiles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.