Numerical simulations of non-ergodic solute transport in three-dimensional heterogeneous porous media

Abstract

Numerical simulations of non-ergodic transport of a non-reactive solute plume by steady-state groundwater flow under a uniform mean velocity, μ, were conducted in a three-dimensional heterogeneous and statistically isotropic aquifer. The hydraulic conductivity, K(x), is modeled as a random field which is assumed to be log-normally distributed with an exponential covariance. Significant efforts are made to reduce the simulation uncertainties. Ensemble averages of the second spatial moments of the plume and the plume centroid variances were simulated with 1600 Monte Carlo (MC) runs for three variances of log K, σY2=0.09, 0.23, and 0.46, and a square source normal to μ of three dimensionless lengths. It is showed that 1600 MC runs are needed to obtain stabilized results in mildly heterogeneous aquifers of σY2≤0.5 and that large uncertainty may exist in the simulated results if less MC runs are used, especially for the transverse second spatial moments and the plume centroid variance in transverse directions. The simulated longitudinal second spatial moment and the plume centroid variance in longitudinal direction fit well to the first-order theoretical results while the simulated transverse moments are generally larger than the first-order values. The ergodic condition for the second spatial moments is far from reaching in all cases simulated and transport in transverse directions may reach ergodic condition much slower than that in longitudinal direction.