Simulation of two-dimensional contaminant transport with dual reciprocity boundary elements

Abstract

Here the dual reciprocity boundary element method is used for the simulation of two-dimensional contaminant transport problems in porous media. In the governing equation, the time-dependent and convective terms are approximated using the dual reciprocity method and Green's theorem is used to get a boundary only solution. Linear elements are used for boundary discretization. The model is verified with some analytical and numerical solutions and found to be satisfactory. A detailed sensitivity analysis is carried out to find the optimal dual reciprocity boundary element model parameters for one-dimensional and two-dimensional problems. The dual reciprocity boundary element model is applied to different case studies of dispersion in unsteady flow field, flow against dispersion problem and two-dimensional dispersion in domain with unsymmetric source concentrations. The dual reciprocity boundary element method is found to be efficient in the simulation of various cases of contaminant transport problems in porous media.