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Pore-Scale Research Campaign: Development of Solute Transport Data Sets for Benchmarking Pore-Scale Numerical Simulators


EMSL Project ID
47657

Abstract

Developing pore-scale transport predictive models in subsurface research is relevant to, among others, contaminant and colloidal transport, non-aqueous phase liquid dissolution, and deep sequestration of CO2. Currently, several independent research groups are developing numerical simulations of multiphase flow and reactive transport at the pore scale without experimental data sets to test, verify, and validate the models. Despite the numerous numerical pore-scale studies evaluating solute mixing available in the literature, there has only been limited testing against experimental data, primarily due to measurement limitations. The numerical models use a variety of computational approaches, and each has strengths in areas such as accuracy, computational speed, or scalability. Because of different numerical approaches, there is a strong benefit in benchmarking these models against common experimental data sets. Such a benchmark challenge would highlight relative strengths of each approach and serve to accelerate progress in the field. At the Pore-scale Modeling Challenge/Workshop held at the EMSL on August 9 and 10, 2011, attendants indicated that a benchmarking effort should include definition of “learning sets” of mutually beneficial pore-scale experimental studies to calibrate numerical models and “challenge sets” designed to numerically predict results without knowing the experimental results. Based on the recommendations of the workshop participants, a total of five micromodel experimental sets have been designed to develop the necessary data to test and verify simulators in their ability to model pore-scale transverse mixing. This proposal describes these five data sets.

Project Details

Project type
Research Campaign
Start Date
2012-07-13
End Date
2015-09-30
Status
Closed

Team

Principal Investigator

Mart Oostrom
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Co-Investigator(s)

Changyong Zhang
Institution
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering

Team Members

Zaki Al-Nahari
Institution
London Imperial College

Qinjun Kang
Institution
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Matthew Balhoff
Institution
University of Texas at Austin

Vahid Joekar-Niasar
Institution
Shell Global Solutions

Michelle Matos de Souza
Institution
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

Guzel Tartakovsky
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Hongkyu Yoon
Institution
Sandia National Laboratory

Thomas Wietsma
Institution
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Albert Valocchi
Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Marshall Richmond
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Related Publications

Boyd V, H Yoon, C Zhang, M Oostrom, NJ Hess, BW Fouke, AJ Valocchi, and CJ Werth. 2014. "Influence of Mg2+ on CaCO3 precipitation during subsurface reactive transport in a homogeneous silicon-etched pore network." Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 135:321-335. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2014.03.018
Mehmani Y, M Oostrom, and M Balhoff. 2014. "A streamline splitting pore-network approach for computationally inexpensive and accurate simulation of transport in porous media." Water Resources Research 50(3):2488-2517. doi:10.1002/2013WR014984
Oostrom M, PDJ Romero Gomez, H Yoon, mehmani, NJ Hess, MC Richmond, EAE Leist, TW Wietsma, JA Serkowski, CL Rakowski, WA Perkins, CJ Werth, M Balhoff, AJ Valocchi, C Zhang, and GD Tartakovsky. 2014. "Pore-scale and Continuum Simulation of Solute Transport Micromodel Benchmark Experiments." Computational Geosciences. doi:10.1007/s10596-014-9424-0