Effects of pore volume-transmissivity correlation on transport phenomena

The relevant velocity that describes transport phenomena in a porous medium is the pore velocity. For this reason, one needs not only to describe the variability of transmissivity, which fully determines the Darcy velocity field for given source terms and boundary conditions, but also any variability of the pore volume. We demonstrate that hydraulically equivalent media with exactly the same transmissivity field can produce dramatic differences in the displacement of a solute if they have different pore volume distributions. In particular, we demonstrate that correlation between pore volume and transmissivity leads to a much smoother and more homogeneous solute distribution. This was observed in a laboratory experiment performed in artificial fractures made of two plexiglass plates into which a space-dependent aperture distribution was milled. Using visualization by a light transmission technique, we observe that the solute behaviour is much smoother and more regular after the fractures are filled with glass powder, which plays the role of a homogeneous fault gouge material. This is due to a perfect correlation between pore volume and transmissivity that causes pore velocity to be not directly dependent on the transmissivity, but only indirectly through the hydraulic gradient, which is a much smoother function due to the diffusive behaviour of the flow equation acting as a filter. This smoothing property of the pore volume-transmissivity correlation is also supported by numerical simulations of tracer tests in a dipole flow field. Three different conceptual models are used: an empty fracture, a rough-walled fracture filled with a homogeneous material and a parallel-plate fracture with a heterogeneous fault gouge. All three models are hydraulically equivalent, yet they have a different pore volume distribution. Even if piezometric heads and specific flow rates are exactly the same at any point of the domain, the transport process differs dramatically. These differences make it important to discriminate in situ among different conceptual models in order to simulate correctly the transport phenomena. For this reason, we study the solute breakthrough and recovery curves at the extraction wells. Our numerical case studies show that discrimination on the basis of such data might be impossible except under very favourable conditions, i.e. the integral scale of the transmissivity field has to be known and small compared to the dipole size. If the latter conditions are satisfied, discrimination between the rough-walled fracture filled with a homogeneous material and the other two models becomes possible, whereas the parallel-plate fracture with a heterogeneous fault gouge and the empty fracture still show identifiability problems. The latter may be solved by inspection of aperture and pressure testing. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.