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Dessication of porous media: intermediate-scale flow cell experiments and numerical simulations

Date

2008

Authors

Oostrom, M., author
Wietsma, T. W., author
Covert, M. A., author
Queen, T. E., author
Colorado State University, publisher

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Abstract

Soil desiccation is recognized as a potentially robust remediation process for the deep vadose zone. Before this technique can be deployed, several techniques issues need to addressed. In this paper, two experiments are described addressing the issue of potential energy limitations to reduce soil moisture. The experiments are conducted in wedge-shaped, intermediate-scale flow cells. The experiment in the homogeneous porous medium showed a maximum evaporative cooling of ~10° C and a rapid decrease in relative humidity when the drying front passed. In the heterogeneous experiments, the fine-grained sand dried considerably slower than the medium-grained sand and showed two local minima. The first minimum is associated with cooling due to evaporation in the adjacent medium grained sand and the second minimum with cooling the find-grained sand itself. The STOMP simulator was able to simulate desiccation and the associated thermal behavior well in both experiments. The good match for both temperature and relative humidity data shows that the STOMP simulator is using appropriate conservation equations and constitutive relations to describe the experimental observations.

Description

2008 annual AGU hydrology days was held at Colorado State University on March 26 - March 28, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references.

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