Transient compressible flows in porous media

Transient compressible flow in porous media was investigated analytically. The major portion of the investigation was directed toward improving and understanding of dispersion in these flows and developing rapid accurate numerical techniques for predicting the extent of dispersion. The results are of interest in the containment of underground nuclear experiments. The transient one-dimensional transport of a trace component in a gas flow is analyzed. A conservation equation accounting for the effects of convective transport, dispersive transport, and decay, is developed. This relation, as well as a relation governing the fluid flow, is used to predict trace component concentration as a function of position and time. A detailed analysis of transport associated with the isothermal flow of an ideal gas is done. Because the governing equations are nonlinear, numerical calculations are performed. The ideal gas flow is calculated using a highly stable implicit iterative procedure with an Eulerian mesh. In order to avoid problems of anomolous dispersion associated with finite difference calculation, trace component convection and dispersion are calculated using a Lagrangian mesh. Details of the Eulerian- Lagrangian numerical technique are presented. Computer codes have been developed and implemented on the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory computer system. (TFD