HR: 1340h
AN: H13B-1252    [Abstracts]
TI: Contaminant transport modeling using the Analytic Element Method and the deterministic Streamline Method
AU: * Bandilla, K w
EM: bandilla@eng.buffalo.edu
AF: University at Buffalo, Dept. Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering 207 Jarvis Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States
AU: Jankovic, I
EM: ijankovi@eng.buffalo.edu
AF: University at Buffalo, Dept. Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering 207 Jarvis Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States
AU: Rabideau, A
EM: rabideau@eng.buffalo.edu
AF: University at Buffalo, Dept. Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering 207 Jarvis Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States
AB: The Analytic Element Method (AEM) formulation for steady 2D groundwater flow is combined with deterministic Streamline Method (SM) to model large-scale transport of reactive contaminants. AEM is an alternative to the Finite Element (FEM) and Finite Difference Methods (FDM) for solving subsurface flow problems on large scales. The domain is discretized along the hydrogeologic elements (e.g. surface water features, zones where conductivity differs from the surrounding conductivity, etc.) instead of using a grid discretization as in FEM and FDM. Two features that make AEM well suited for a basis for the SM are particle tracking without interpolation and the strong parallel processing capabilities. In the implementation presented here a 2D steady-state groundwater flow simulator is used to solve the flow problem in the horizontal plane. Vertical velocities are computed based on mass balance considerations, thus leading to a quasi 3D flow field. The 3D particle tracks are then used in the SM for contaminant transport. The SM discretizes the transport domain by converting curvy 3D streamlines into straight 1D streamlines. The conversion is achieved by transforming the Cartesian coordinates of the transport domain into a 1D coordinate system based on the `time-of-flight' coordinate, which describes the time for a particle to travel a distance along the streamline. The transport along the streamline can then be solved using FEM or FDM. Two beneficial features of the Streamline Method are the comparative ease of solving a set of uncoupled 1D models instead of a single fully-coupled 3D model and the independence of streamlines which leads to efficient parallel processing. The capability of this approach to model large scale reactive contaminant transport is shown based on a test case. The influence of reaction complexity and parallel processing will be shown.
DE: 1831 Groundwater quality
DE: 1832 Groundwater transport
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1849 Numerical approximations and analysis
DE: 1871 Surface water quality
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting