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CHAPTER 9
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
If I have seen further than others, it is by
standing upon the shoulders of giants.text
Isaac Newton
T
he focus of this research was to identify and describe the physical/chemical
processes that govern the transport of both passive and reactive/adsorptive
solutes in porous media by using pore network modeling. We consider transport
of reactive/adsorptive solutes under both saturated and partiality saturated
conditions. While under saturated conditions the interfaces are only those of
solid-water interfaces, under saturated conditions in addition to solid-water interfaces
there will be mass transfer though air-water interfaces as well.
We developed an extensive FORTRAN 90 modular package whose capabilities
include the generation of random structure networks, simulation of drainage
process, the discretization of pore spaces on the basis of saturation state of
each pore, and solving flow and reactive transport under both saturated and
unsaturated conditions, using several complex algorithms. The governing equations
are solved applying a fully implicit numerical scheme; however, efficient
substitution methods have been applied to make the algorithm more computationally
effective and appropriate for parallel computations.
Through this study we have tried to address some fundamental issues regarding
flow and transport of (reactive/adsorptive) solute in porous media. Specific issues
addressed in the work could be categorized into three parts: I) generation
of a Multi-Directional Pore Network (MDPN); II) upscaling under saturated
conditions; and III) upscaling under partially-saturated conditions.