Coupled flow and transport simulation involving rate-limited adsorption in highly heterogeneous unconfined aquifers using a local strong form meshless method

Abstract

Adsorption plays a vital role in contaminant transport in groundwater. Generally, a local equilibrium assumption is used in which the retardation factor is derived from aquifer material and contaminant type. However, for problems involving faster seepage velocities, this assumption becomes invalid and the mass transfer between mobile and immobile or, sorbed phases of contaminant becomes rate-limited. Traditionally, finite difference method (FDM) models are employed for contaminant transport simulation with rate-limited adsorption (RLA). Nonetheless, due to the presence of a grid, these models show instabilities, especially for advection dominant problems. In the present study, a meshless Radial Point Collocation Method (RPCM-RLA) is proposed for contaminant transport simulation with rate-limited adsorption. The proposed model is verified with semi-analytical solutions and its efficacy is assessed with the popularly used FDM-based Reactive Transport in 3 Dimensions (RT3D) model. The RPCM-RLA model is observed to provide stable and accurate solutions even for advection dominant problems whereas RT3D model simulations show excessive numerical dispersion. Furthermore, the effectiveness of RPCM-RLA model is demonstrated in two case studies concerning heterogeneous unconfined aquifers by comparing it with RT3D. Both model simulations agree consistently with maximum values of normalized mean absolute error (NMAE) being 0.0055 and 0.031 for case studies 1 and 2 respectively, with better performance of RPCM-RLA model.