Quasi-three-dimensional analysis of ground water flow and dissolved multicomponent solute transport in saturated porous media

A computational procedure was developed in this study to provide flexibility needed in the application of three-dimensional groundwater flow and dissolved multicomponent solute transport simulations. In the first part of this study, analytical solutions were proposed for the dissolved single-component solute transport problem. These closed form solutions were developed for homogeneous but stratified porous media. This analytical model took into account two-dimensional diffusion-advection in the main aquifer layer and one-dimensional diffusion-advection in the adjacent aquitards, as well as first order radioactive decay and linear adsorption isotherm in both aquifer and aquitards. The associated analytical solutions for solute concentration distributions in the aquifer and aquitards were obtained using Laplace Transformation and Method of Separation of Variables techniques. Next, in order to analyze the problem numerically, a quasi-three-dimensional finite element algorithm was developed based on the multilayer aquifer concept. In this phase, advection, dispersion, adsorption and first order multi-species chemical reaction terms were included to the analysis. Employing this model, without restriction on groundwater flow pattern in the multilayer aquifer system, one may analyze the complex behavior of the groundwater flow and solute movement pattern in the system. These numerical models may be utilized as calibration tools in site characterization studies, or as predictive models during the initial stages of a typical site investigation study. Through application to several test and field problems, the usefulness, accuracy and efficiency of the proposed models were demonstrated. Comparison of results with analytical solution, experimental data and other numerical methods were also discussed