Reactive Transport in Fractured Permeable Porous Media

Abstract

The transport of reactive solutes can be influenced by transport-related and sorption-related nonequilibrium processes. The reactive contaminant transport model for fracture and the multiprocess nonequilibrium (MPNE) model for porous formation is considered. Two coupled transport equations, one for the porous formation and the other for the fracture, were solved numerically using a hybrid finite-volume method. The numerical model employs a globally second-order accurate explicit finite-volume method for the advective transport and a finite-difference method for the dispersive transport and coupled reaction terms. An attempt is made to investigate the effects of various MPNE model parameters on the concentration profile in the fracture. It was found that the higher values of mass transfer coefficient, sorption coefficient, matrix diffusion coefficient, fracture retardation coefficient, and matrix porosity in the advective and nonadvective regions of the porous matrix leads to a decrease in the solute concentration in the fracture. This numerical model might be useful in simulating the reactive transport through fractured porous media at field scale for both dispersion-dominated and advection-dominated transport.