The Solution to Pollution is Distribution: Design Your Own Chaotic Flow

Abstract:

Plume spreading promotes the molecular mixing that drives chemical reactions in porous media in general, and remediation reactions in groundwater aquifers in particular. Theoretical analysis suggests that engineered injection and extraction, a specific sequence of pumping through wells surrounding a contaminant plume, can improve groundwater remediation through chaotic advection. Selection of an engineered injection and extraction scheme is difficult, however, because the engineer is faced with the difficulty of recommending a pumping scheme for a contaminated site without having any previous knowledge of how the scheme will perform. To address this difficulty, this presentation describes a Graphical User Interface (GUI) designed to help engineers develop, test, and observe pumping schemes as described in previous research (Mays, D.C. and Neupauer, R.M., 2012, Plume spreading in groundwater by stretching and folding, Water Resour. Res., 48, W07501, doi:10.1029/2011WR011567). The inputs allow the user to manipulate the model conditions such as number of wells, plume size, and pumping scheme. Plume evolution is modeled, assuming no diffusion or dispersion, using analytical solutions for injection or extraction through individual wells or pairs or wells (i.e., dipoles). Using the GUI, an engineered injection and extraction scheme can be determined that best fits the remediation needs of the contaminated site. By creating multiple injection and extraction schemes, the user can learn about the plume shapes created from different schemes and, ultimately, recommend a pumping scheme based on some experience of fluid flow as shown in the GUI. The pumping schemes developed through this GUI are expected to guide more advanced modeling and laboratory studies that account for the crucial role of dispersion in groundwater remediation.