DCPT: A dual-continua random walk particle tracker for transport

Accurate and efficient simulation of chemical transport processes in the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain is important to evaluate the performance of the potential repository. The scale of the unsaturated zone model domain for Yucca Mountain (50 km2 area with a 600 meter depth to the water table) requires a large gridblock approach to efficiently analyze complex flow and transport processes. The conventional schemes based on finite element or finite difference methods perform well for dispersion-dominated transport, but are subject to considerable numerical dilution/dispersion for advection-dominated transport, especially when a large gridblock size is used. Numerical dispersion is an artificial, grid-dependent chemical spreading, especially for otherwise steep concentration fronts. One effective scheme to deal with numerical dispersion is the random walk particle method (RWPM). While significant progress has been made in developing RWPM algorithms and codes for single continuum systems, a random walk particle tracker, which can handle chemical transport in dual-continua (fractured porous media) associated with irregular grid systems, is still absent (to our knowledge) in the public domain. This is largely due to the lacking of rigorous schemes to deal with particle transfer between the continua, and efficient schemes to track particles in irregular grid systems. The main objectives of this study are (1) to develop approaches to extend RWPM from a single continuum to a dual-continua system; (2) to develop an efficient algorithm for tracking particles in 3D irregular grids; and (3) to integrate these approaches into an efficient and user-friendly software, DCPT, for simulating chemical transport in fractured porous media