Research on Fluid Flow and
Chemical Transport in the Vadose Zone and the Partially Saturated Fringe
Inducing Fluid Flow and Chemical Transport in the Vadose Zone
Our
most recent work involves inducing horizontal flow in the vadose zone by taking
advantage of natural capillary barriers in combination with suction cup
lysimeters to allow both injection and withdrawal of fluid into fine sediment
lenses (within coarser sediment matrices).
This work is being pursued through both laboratory and numerical
experiments.
Suction
cup lysimeters
Time-lapse movie of tracer (green dye) movement
through a fine
(30-40 mesh) sand surrounded by coarse (12-20 mesh)
sand. Note the
lack of migration of green dye into the underlying coarse
sand
(approximately 3 megabytes).
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Fluid Flow, Chemical Transport and Microbial Activity in the
Zone of Transition Between the Vadose Zone and the Region Below the Water Table
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Experiments on Entrapment of Air and
LNAPLs in the Vicinity of the Water Table:
This work focused on laboratory and
numerical studies of entrapment of air or
LNAPLs in the vicinity of the water
table during drainage and imbibition.
The
upper photo shows the general tank set
up (with
saturation percentages) with the lower
photo showing the entrapment of
SOLTROL (dyed red) during imbibition
with water.
See the Master’s thesis and Ph.D.
dissertation of Dr. Andrea Dunn
as well as publications (info below) for
details on this work.
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Work With Microbial Transport Through The Capillary Fringe: See Papers Below
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Our Early Experiments (in
collaboration with the Weismann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
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Related Publications
Dunn, A.M., S.E. Silliman, S. Dhamwichukorn, and
C.F. Kulpa, “Demonstration of Microbial Transport into the Capillary
Fringe via Advection from Below the Water Table”, Journal of Hydrology,
306(1-4), 50-58, 2005.
Dunn, Andrea M., Air and LNAPL entrapment in the partially saturated
fringe laboratory and numerical investigations, PhD Dissertation,
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 105 pp., 2005.
Berkowitz, B., S.E. Silliman and A.M. Dunn, “Impact of the capillary fringe on local flow, chemical migration, and microbiology”, Vadose Zone Journal, 3, 534-548, 2004.
Dunn, A., and S.E. Silliman, “Air and Water
Entrapment in the Vicinity of the Water Table: A laboratory study on
heterogeneous sands”, Ground Water, 41(6), 729-734, 2003.
Dunn, Andrea M., Air and water entrapment in the
vicinity of the water table : a laboratory study on heterogeneous sands , Masters
Thesis, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 65 pp., 2003.
Silliman, S.E., B. Berkowitz, J. Simunek, and M.
th. van Genuchten, “Fluid Flow and Chemical Migration Within the
Capillary Fringe”, Ground Water, 40(1), 76-84, 2002.
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