Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Model of Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid Flow and Dissolution

Abstract

A smoothed particle hydrodynamics model was developed to simulate the flow of mixtures of aqueous and non-aqueous phase liquids in porous media and the dissolution of the non-aqueous phase in the aqueous phase. The model was used to study the effects of pore-scale heterogeneity and anisotropy on the steady state dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) saturation when gravity driven DNAPL displaces water from initially water saturated porous media. Pore-scale anisotropy was created by using co-oriented non-overlapping elliptically shaped grains to represent the porous media. After a steady state DNAPL saturation was reached, water was injected until a new steady state DNAPL saturation was reached. The amount of trapped DNAPL was found to be greater when DNAPL is displaced in the direction of the major axes of the soil grains than when it is displaced in the direction of the minor axes of the soil grains. The amount of trapped DNAPL was also found to increase with decreasing initial saturation of the continuous DNAPL phase. For the conditions used in our simulations, the saturation of the trapped DNAPL with a smaller initial DNAPL saturation was more than 3 times larger than the amount of trapped DNAPL with a larger initial saturation. These simulations were carried out assuming that the DNAPL did not dissolve in water. Simulations including the effect of dissolution of DNAPL in the aqueous phase were also performed, and effective (macroscopic) mass transfer coefficients were determined.