A model for the effective diffusion of gas or the vapor phase in a fractured media unsaturated zone driven by periodic atmospheric pressure fluctuations

Abstract

There is evidence for migration of tritiated water vapor through the tuff in the unsaturated zone from the buried disposal shafts located on a narrow mesa top at Area G, Los Alamos, NM. Field data are consistent with an effective in-situ vapor phase diffusion coefficient of 1.5x10{sup {minus}3} m{sup s}/s, or a factor of 60 greater than the binary diffusion coefficient for water vapor in air. A model is derived to explain this observation of anomolously large diffusion, which relates an effective vapor or gas phase diffusion coefficient in the fractured porous media to the subsurface propagation of atmospheric pressure fluctuations (barometric pumping). The near surface (unattenuated) diffusion coefficient is independent of mode period under the simplified assumptions of a complete {open_quote}mixing mechanism{close_quote} for the effective diffusion process. The unattenuated effective diffusion driven by this barometric pumping is proportional to an average media permeability times the sum of the square of pressure mode amplitudes, while the attenuation length is proportional to the squarer root of the product of permeability times mode period. There is evidence that the permeability needed to evaluate the pressure attenuation length is the in-situ value, approximately that of the matrix. The diffusion which results using Area G parameter values is negligible in the matrix but becomes large at the effective permeability of the fractured tuff matrix. The effective diffusion coefficient predicted by this model, due to pressure fluctuations and the observed fracture characteristics, is in good agreement with the observed in-situ diffusion coefficient for tritium field measurements. It is concluded that barometric pumping in combination with the enhanced permeability of the fractured media is a likely candidate to account for the observed in-field migration of vapor in the near surface unsaturated zone at Area G.