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Dispersion controlled by permeable surfaces: surface properties and scaling

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Bowen Ling
Affiliation:
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USAMechanical Engineering Department, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA
Alexandre M. Tartakovsky
Affiliation:
Fundamental and Computational Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, USA
Ilenia Battiato*
Affiliation:
Mechanical Engineering Department, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: ibattiato@mail.sdsu.edu

Abstract

Permeable and porous surfaces are common in natural and engineered systems. Flow and transport above such surfaces are significantly affected by the surface properties, e.g. matrix porosity and permeability. However, the relationship between such properties and macroscopic solute transport is largely unknown. In this work, we focus on mass transport in a two-dimensional channel with permeable porous walls under fully developed laminar flow conditions. By means of perturbation theory and asymptotic analysis, we derive the set of upscaled equations describing mass transport in the coupled channel–porous-matrix system and an analytical expression relating the dispersion coefficient with the properties of the surface, namely porosity and permeability. Our analysis shows that their impact on the dispersion coefficient strongly depends on the magnitude of the Péclet number, i.e. on the interplay between diffusive and advective mass transport. Additionally, we demonstrate different scaling behaviours of the dispersion coefficient for thin or thick porous matrices. Our analysis shows the possibility of controlling the dispersion coefficient, i.e. transverse mixing, by either active (i.e. changing the operating conditions) or passive mechanisms (i.e. controlling matrix effective properties) for a given Péclet number. By elucidating the impact of matrix porosity and permeability on solute transport, our upscaled model lays the foundation for the improved understanding, control and design of microporous coatings with targeted macroscopic transport features.

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Papers
Copyright
© 2016 Cambridge University Press 
Figure 0

Figure 1.Problem domain.

Figure 1

Figure 2.Normalized dispersion coefficients ${\it\kappa}_{f}$ (solid red lines) and ${\it\kappa}_{d}$ (dashed back line) versus $Pe$ for different values of ${\it\lambda}$ and ${\it\Lambda}$. Here, ${\it\Psi}=-0.78$ and $h=10$.

Figure 2

Figure 3.(a) Scaling behaviour of the normalized dispersion coefficient ${\it\Pi}$ defined in (4.7) for thin porous media (${\it\Lambda}\lesssim 1$) and (b) $h<1$ and $h>1$. The coefficient ${\it\Pi}$, i.e. transverse dispersion, is controlled by the width $h$ of the porous matrix when ${\it\Lambda}\lesssim 1$; this dependence goes from linear to quadratic as $h$ increases above the threshold $h\approx 1$.

Figure 3

Figure 4.Scaling behaviour of the normalized dispersion coefficient ${\it\Pi}$ defined in (4.7) for thick porous media (${\it\Lambda}\gg 1$). The normalized dispersion coefficient is controlled by the matrix permeability only when ${\it\Lambda}\gg 1$.

Figure 4

Figure 5.Comparison between the averaged 2D concentration in the channel and the 1D analytical solution, equation (5.1) (Ogata & Banks 1961), for passive scalar transport in a single channel with uniform velocity and constant injection. The average concentration $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ is plotted in terms of the dimensionless distance from the channel inlet at different instances in time $\tilde{t}$. Here, $h=10$, ${\it\phi}=1$, ${\it\epsilon}=0.01$, $D_{f}=D_{mx}=D_{my}=1$ and $u_{f}=u_{m}=u^{\star }=0.01$.

Figure 5

Figure 6.(a–d) Average concentration profiles $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ along the channel obtained either from the upscaled 1D (solid lines) or the pore-scale 2D equations (dashed lines) for different instances in time and Péclet numbers, i.e. $Pe=\{0.1,10,100,1000\}$. (e–h) Absolute error $E_{f}(x,t):=|\langle c_{f}\rangle _{2D}-\langle c_{f}\rangle _{1D}|$ corresponding to each simulation. The dashed horizontal line represents the error bound $\sqrt{{\it\epsilon}}$ prescribed by homogenization theory. As predicted, the 1D equations capture the pore-scale dynamics within errors of order $\sqrt{{\it\epsilon}}$ for $Pe<{\it\epsilon}^{-1/2}\approx 7$. Importantly, for $10, the 1D simulation is still accurate. For $Pe=1000$, the error is not bounded by $\sqrt{{\it\epsilon}}$ at early times, but the 1D model accuracy is recovered at later times. The simulation parameters are ${\it\epsilon}=0.02$, ${\it\lambda}=10$, ${\it\Psi}=-0.78$, ${\it\phi}=0.1$, $D_{f}=1$, $D_{mx}=0.1$, $D_{my}=0.1$ and $h=10$.

Figure 6

Figure 7.Simulation parameters: ${\it\epsilon}=0.02$, ${\it\lambda}=31.6$, ${\it\phi}=0.1$, ${\it\Psi}=-0.78$, $D_{f}=1$, $D_{mx}=0.1$, $D_{my}=0.1$, $h=10$. (a) Average concentration profiles $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ along the channel obtained either from the upscaled 1D (solid lines) or from the pore-scale 2D equations (dashed lines) for different instances in time. (b) Absolute error $E_{f}(x,t):=|\langle c_{f}\rangle _{2D}-\langle c_{f}\rangle _{1D}|$ corresponding to each simulation. The dashed horizontal line represents the error bound $\sqrt{{\it\epsilon}}$ prescribed by homogenization theory.

Figure 7

Figure 8.Time evolution of the channel average concentration $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ calculated at location $x^{\star }=b$ for different ${\it\lambda}$ and Péclet numbers. The parameters used in the simulations are ${\it\phi}=0.01$, ${\it\Psi}=-0.78$, ${\it\epsilon}=0.01$, $D_{f}=1$ and $h=10$.

Figure 8

Figure 9.Difference between the average concentration in the channel $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ for two values of the dimensionless permeability, ${\it\lambda}=\sqrt{10^{2}}$ and ${\it\lambda}=\sqrt{10^{3}}$, and different Péclet numbers, obtained from (3.5). The set of parameters used in the simulations is ${\it\phi}=0.5$, ${\it\Psi}=-0.78$, ${\it\epsilon}=0.02$, $D_{f}=1$, $D_{mx}=0.1$, $D_{my}=0.1$, $h=10$. The concentration $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ is measured at $x=1$.

Figure 9

Figure 10.Comparison between $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ (solid lines) and $\langle c_{m}\rangle$ (dashed lines) for low (a) and high Péclet numbers (b). The simulation parameters are ${\it\phi}=0.5$, ${\it\Psi}=-0.78$, ${\it\epsilon}=0.02$, $D_{f}=1$, $D_{mx}=0.1$, $D_{my}=0.1$, $h=10$. The concentrations $\langle c_{f}\rangle$ and $\langle c_{m}\rangle$ are measured at $x=1$.

Figure 10

Figure 11.(a,c,e) Comparison between the breakthrough curves obtained from (3.5a) and (5.2) (by Dejam et al.) and the averaged pore-scale solution for two permeability values, ${\it\lambda}=0.3$ and ${\it\lambda}=100$. (b,d,f) Absolute errors between the upscaled solutions (3.5a) and (5.2) and the averaged pore-scale solution, $E_{1D}(x,t;{\it\lambda}):=|\langle c_{f}\rangle _{2D}-\langle c\rangle _{f,1D}|$ and $E_{D}(x,t;{\it\lambda}):=|\langle c_{f}\rangle _{2D}-\langle c\rangle _{f,Dejam~et~al.}|$ respectively. The simulation parameters are ${\it\epsilon}=0.02$, ${\it\phi}=0.1$, ${\it\Psi}=-1$, $D_{f}=1$, $D_{mx}=0.1$, $D_{my}=0.01$ and $h=10$.