Open AccessSemianalytical Solutions of Radioactive or Reactive Tracer Transport in Layered Fractured Media
Author(s) -
George J. Moridis,
G.S. Bodvarsson
Publication year - 2001
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/805582
Subject(s) - colloid , porous medium , sorption , tracer , diffusion , damköhler numbers , radioactive tracer , péclet number , mass transfer , chemistry , radioactive decay , advection , filtration (mathematics) , thermodynamics , porosity , physics , turbulence , chromatography , nuclear physics , adsorption , statistics , mathematics , organic chemistry
In this paper, semianalytical solutions are developed for the problem of transport of radioactive or reactive tracers (solutes or colloids) through a layered system of heterogeneous fractured media with misaligned fractures. The tracer transport equations in the matrix account for (a) diffusion, (b) surface diffusion (for solutes only), (c) mass transfer between the mobile and immobile water fractions, (d) linear kinetic or equilibrium physical, chemical, or combined solute sorption or colloid filtration, and (e) radioactive decay or first order chemical reactions. Any number of radioactive decay daughter products (or products of a linear, first-order reaction chain) can be tracked. The tracer-transport equations in the fractures account for the same processes, in addition to advection and hydrodynamic dispersion. Additionally, the colloid transport equations account for straining and velocity adjustments related to the colloidal size. The solutions, which are analytical in the Laplace space, are numerically inverted to provide the solution in time and can accommodate any number of fractured and/or porous layers. The solutions are verified using analytical solutions for limiting cases of solute and colloid transport through fractured and porous media. The effect of important parameters on the transport of {sup 3}H, {sup 237}Np and {sup 239}Pu (and its daughters) is investigated in several test problems involving layered geological systems of varying complexity. {sup 239}Pu colloid transport problems in multilayered systems indicate significant colloid accumulations at straining interfaces but much faster transport of the colloid than the corresponding strongly sorbing solute species