Abstract
An accurate measurement campaign, carried out on a confined porous aquifer, expressly reproduced in laboratory, allowed the determining of hydraulic conductivity values by performing a series of slug tests. This was done for four porous medium configurations with different granulometric compositions. At the scale considered, intermediate between those of the laboratory and the field, the scalar behaviors of the hydraulic conductivity and the effective porosity was verified, determining the respective scaling laws. Moreover, assuming the effective porosity as scale parameter, the scaling laws of the hydraulic conductivity were determined for the different injection volumes of the slug test, determining a new relationship, valid for coarse-grained porous media. The results obtained allow the influence that the differences among the characteristics of the porous media considered exerted on the scaling laws obtained to be highlighted. Finally, a comparison was made with the results obtained in a previous investigation carried out at the field scale.
Highlights
Among the parameters’ characterizing aquifers, certainly the hydraulic conductivity is one of the most meaningful and useful for the description of the flow and mass transport phenomena in porous media
Even if the soil configurations considered are constituted by different types of porous media, the overall composition of each configuration remains uniform throughout the aquifer volume
8, it is possible to hydrogeological notice that, even if thethat two laws taken into an aquifer, such as the hydraulic conductivity, and the determination of the corresponding consideration are very similar, that of Kozeny-Carman presents a lower slope scaling for the same laws are of great importance for the description of the flow and mass transport phenomena occurring investigation range—that is, a variation of K contained in a smaller range
Summary
Among the parameters’ characterizing aquifers, certainly the hydraulic conductivity is one of the most meaningful and useful for the description of the flow and mass transport phenomena in porous media. In the experimental verification of the scaling behavior of the hydraulic conductivity, it is necessary to verify that the significant values of this parameter were obtained in contexts and in conditions to guarantee a correct comparison, namely under identical flow conditions This is important if a series of K values measured at different scales, in the field and in the laboratory on samples of porous media, are considered. The usefulness of a relationship of this type is evident, as it allows users to make a fast and reliable estimate of the hydraulic conductivity, even if limited to the ambit, vast, of the investigated soils and taking into account some conditions and restrictions specified below In this regard, it should be noted that the investigation ambit of this study certainly concerns the coarse-grained porous media, with a predominantly sandy matrix but, that it is delimited by the particular scale considered here. Afterwards, with an extensive discussion, the results obtained are reported in terms of K and ne scaling laws and a new variation law of K with ne performing the appropriate comparisons with the results obtained using the grain size distribution methodologies
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