Abdullah Cihan

Evaporation from soils under thermal boundary conditions: Experimental and modeling investigation to compare equilibrium‐ and nonequilibrium‐based approaches

[1]xa0In the shallow subsurface immediately below the land-atmosphere interface, it is widely recognized that the movement of water vapor is closely coupled to thermal processes. However, their mutual interactions are rarely considered in most soil water modeling efforts or in practical applications where it becomes necessary to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of soil moisture. The validation of numerical models that are designed to capture these processes is difficult due to the scarcity of field or laboratory data with accurately known hydraulic and thermal parameters of soils, limiting the testing and refinement of heat and water transfer theories. The goal of this paper is to perform controlled experiments under transient conditions of soil moisture and temperature and use this data to test existing theories and develop appropriate numerical models. Water vapor flow under varying temperature gradients was implemented on the basis of a concept that allows nonequilibrium liquid/gas phase change with gas phase vapor diffusion. To validate this new approach, we developed a long column apparatus equipped with a network of sensors and generated data under well-controlled thermal boundary conditions at the soil surface. The nonequilibrium approach yielded good agreement with the experimental results, validating the hypothesis that transport in the gas phase is better suited to be modeled with nonequilibrium liquid/gas phase change for highly transient field conditions where the thermal conditions at the land-atmosphere interface are constantly changing.

Predicting relative permeability from water retention: A direct approach based on fractal geometry

[1]xa0Commonly, a soils relative permeability curve is predicted from its measured water retention curve by fitting equations that share parameters between the two curves (e.g., Brooks/Corey-Mualem and van Genuchten-Mualem). We present a new approach to predict relative permeability by direct application of measured soil water retention data without any fitting procedures. The new relative permeability model, derived from a probabilistic fractal approach, appears in series form as a function of suction and the incremental change in water content. This discrete approach describes the drained pore space and permeability at different suctions incorporating the effects of both pore size distribution and connectivity among water-filled pores. We compared the new model performance predicting relative permeability to that of the van Genuchten-Mualem (VG-M) model for 35 paired data sets from the Unsaturated Soil hydraulic Database (UNSODA) and five other previously published data sets. At the 5% level of significance, the new method predicts relative permeabilities from the UNSODA database significantly better (mean logarithmic root-mean-square error, LRMSE = 0.813) than the VG-M model (LRMSE = 1.555). Each prediction of relative permeability from the five other previously published data sets was also significantly better.

Effect of compressibility on the rise velocity of an air bubble in porous media

[1]xa0The objective of this study is to develop a theoretical model to analyze the effect of air compressibility on air bubble migration in porous media. The model is obtained by combining the Newtons second law of motion and the ideal gas law assuming that the air phase in the bubble behaves as an ideal gas. Numerical and analytical solutions are presented for various cases of interest. The model results compare favorably with both experimental data and analytical solutions reported in the literature obtained for an incompressible air bubble migration. The results show that travel velocity of a compressible air bubble in porous media strongly depends on the depth of air phase injection. A bubble released from greater depths travels with a slower velocity than a bubble with an equal volume injected at shallower depths. As an air bubble rises up, it expands with decreasing bubble pressure with depth. The volume of a bubble injected at a 1-m depth increases 10% as the bubble reaches the water table. However, bubble volume increases almost twofold when it reaches to the surface from a depth of 10 m. The vertical rise velocity of a compressible bubble approaches that of an incompressible one regardless of the injection depth and volume as it reaches the water table. The compressible bubble velocity does not exceed 18.8 cm/s regardless of the injection depth and bubble volume. The results demonstrate that the effect of air compressibility on the motion of a bubble cannot be neglected except when the air is injected at very shallow depths.

Intermediate Scale Laboratory Testing to Understand Mechanisms of Capillary and Dissolution Trapping during Injection and Post-Injection of CO2 in Heterogeneous Geological Formations

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) represents a technology aimed to reduce atmospheric loading of CO2 from power plants and heavy industries by injecting it into deep geological formations, such as saline aquifers. A number of trapping mechanisms contribute to effective and secure storage of the injected CO2 in supercritical fluid phase (scCO2) in the formation over the long term. The primary trapping mechanisms are structural, residual, dissolution and mineralization. Knowledge gaps exist on how the heterogeneity of the formation manifested at all scales from the pore to the site scales affects trapping and parameterization of contributing mechanisms in models. An experimental and modeling study was conducted to fill these knowledge gaps. Experimental investigation of fundamental processes and mechanisms in field settings is not possible as it is not feasible to fully characterize the geologic heterogeneity at all relevant scales and gathering data on migration, trapping and dissolution of scCO2. Laboratory experiments using scCO2 under ambient conditions are also not feasible as it is technically challenging and cost prohibitive to develop large, two- or three-dimensional test systems with controlled high pressures to keep the scCO2 as a liquid. Hence, an innovative approach that used surrogate fluids in place of scCO2 andmorexa0» formation brine in multi-scale, synthetic aquifers test systems ranging in scales from centimeter to meter scale developed used. New modeling algorithms were developed to capture the processes controlled by the formation heterogeneity, and they were tested using the data from the laboratory test systems. The results and findings are expected to contribute toward better conceptual models, future improvements to DOE numerical codes, more accurate assessment of storage capacities, and optimized placement strategies. This report presents the experimental and modeling methods and research results.«xa0less