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Analysis and modeling of solute transport dynamics by breakdown coefficients and random cascades
Author(s) -
Olsson Jonas,
Persson Magnus,
Jinno Kenji
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/2005wr004631
Subject(s) - scaling , cascade , statistical physics , mechanics , mass flux , biological system , materials science , physics , mathematics , geometry , chemistry , biology , chromatography
The small‐scale variability and scaling properties of solute transport dynamics were investigated by laboratory experiments. Dye‐stained water was applied at a constant flux in a Plexiglas Hele‐Shaw cell filled with soil material, and the transport process was registered by digital photographs of the cell front, producing a very high resolution in both time (minutes) and space (millimeters). The experiments comprised different cell materials (uniform and natural sand) and different water fluxes. Scaling properties of vertically integrated dye mass distributions were analyzed and modeled using so‐called breakdown coefficients (BDCs), which represent the multiplicative weights in a microcanonical random cascade process. The pdfs of BDCs varied with scale, indicating self‐affine scaling, and were accurately approximated by beta distributions with a scaling parameter. Two versions of BDC‐based random cascade models were used to simulate mass distributions at different time steps. The results support the applicability of random cascade models to subsurface transport processes.