The importance of grain morphology and transverse velocity in porous media flows: Using OPENFOAM® to simulate solute transport in fractured porous media
It is popular to treat transport within porous media with 1-D diffusion equation while deriving analytical solutions. In this thesis, we use the open-source software OpenFOAM® to simulate solute transport in fractured porous media and study different cases of consolidated and unconsolidated materials. The results show that the analytical solution under the assumption that transport in the matrix will be mainly by molecular diffusion has limited ability to model solute transport in porous media with complex pores. Also, we learn that the transverse velocity plays a decisive role in the transport within the porous matrix, which is often treated as negligible in previous works. With the M number method (proposed in this thesis), the transport behavior is predictable even with arbitrary pore spaces. This leads to a better understanding of transport processes and batter control to enhance or suppress the transport efficiency while designing filter, reactor and ion exchange columns.
