Upscaling of water flow and mass transport in a tropical soil: numerical, laboratory and field studies

• Ano de defesa: 2018
• Autor(a) principal: Godoy, Vanessa Almeida de
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Column experimente; Condutividade hidráulica; Dispersão; Dispersion; Double-ring infiltrometer; Ensaio de coluna; Fator de retardo; Hydraulic conductivity; Infiltrômetro de duplo anel; Modelagem Numérica; Numerical modeling; Retardation fator
• Link de acesso: http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/18/18132/tde-13072018-092153/

Numerical models are becoming fundamental tools to predict a range of complex problems faced by geotechnical and geo-environmental engineers. However, to render the model reliable for future predictions, the model input parameters must be determined with consideration of the scale effects. If there is a difference of scales between the observation and the model scales there are two possible ways to consider it: or models are constructed with elements of a size similar to that at which the data were measured, or some upscaling rules must be defined. In this context, this thesis focuses on upscaling of water flow and mass transport in a tropical soil by means of numerical, laboratory and field studies. This thesis is organized in four parts. First, the heterogeneity, correlation and cross-correlation between solute transport parameters (dispersivity, α, and partition coefficient, Kd) and soil properties are studied in detail. In this part, it is verified that the hydraulic conductivity (K) and solute transport parameters are highly heterogeneous, while soil properties are not. Spatial correlation of α, K, and statistically significant variables are studied, and it would probably improve the estimation only in a small-scale study, since the spatial correlation are only observed up to 2.5 m. This study is a first attempt to evaluate the spatial variation in the correlation coefficient of transport parameters of a reactive and a nonreactive solute, indicating the more relevant variables and the one that should be included in future studies. In the second part, scale effect on K, dispersivity and partition coefficient of potassium and chloride are studied experimentally by means of laboratory and field experiments. The purpose is to contribute to the discussion about scale effects on K, α and Kd and understanding how these parameters behave with the change in the scale of measurement. Results show that K values increases with scale, regardless of the method of measurement, except for the results obtained from double-ring infiltrometer tests. Dispersivity trends to increase exponentially with the sample height. Partition coefficient tends to increase with sample length, diameter and volume. These differences in the parameters according to the scale of measurement must be considered when these observations are later used as input to numerical models, otherwise the responses can be misrepresented. Third, stochastic analysis of three-dimensional hydraulic conductivity upscaling is performed using a simple average and the Laplacian-with-skin methods for a variety of block sizes based on real K measurements. In this part it is demonstrated the errors that can be introduced by using a deterministic upscaling using simple averages of the measured K without accounting for the spatial correlation. Results show that K heterogeneity can be incorporated in the daily practice of the geotechnical modeler. The aspects to consider when performing the upscaling are also discussed. Finally, the dependence of the exponent of the p-norm as a function of the block size is analyzed. In the last part, stochastic upscaling of hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient (D) and retardation factor (R) is performed using real data aiming to reduce the lack in experimental upscaling of reactive solute transport research. The enhanced macrodispersion coefficient approach is used to upscale the local scale hydrodynamic dispersion (D) and, as a novelty, the impact of heterogeneity of local dispersivity is also taken into account. To upscale retardation factor (R), a p-norm is used to compute an equivalent R. Uncertainty analyses are also performed and a good propagation of the uncertainties is achieved after upscaling. Simple upscaling methods can be incorporated to the modeling practice using commercial transport codes and properly reproduce de transport at coarse scale but may require corrections to reduce smoothing of the heterogeneity caused by the upscaling procedure.