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Upscaling particle transport in discrete fracture networks: 2. Reactive tracers
Author(s) -
Frampton A.,
Cvetkovic V.
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 - 10.1029/2006wr005336
Subject(s) - tracer , fracture (geology) , residence time (fluid dynamics) , particle (ecology) , scale (ratio) , mechanics , diffusion , magnitude (astronomy) , environmental science , statistical physics , geology , geotechnical engineering , physics , thermodynamics , nuclear physics , oceanography , quantum mechanics , astronomy
We study sorbing tracer transport through discrete fracture networks using a stochastic Lagrangian framework, combined with the methodology for upscaling particle breakthrough curves developed in the first part of this article series. Results indicate that this procedure can accurately predict expected normalized tracer discharge for an upscaled distance of 1 order of magnitude in terms of transport scale, which for our simulations is about 2 orders of magnitude greater than the mean fracture segment scale. Specifically, we show the importance of retaining the correlation between the water residence time τ and the hydrodynamic control of retention β in order to make accurate tracer discharge predictions. Also, we show that the extreme tails of τ and β distributions have essentially no impact on tracer discharge. These results are illustrated using the unlimited diffusion model, and for two hypothetical tracers with properties designed to capture the behavior of many commonly occurring natural radionuclides.