2019 Volume 75 Issue 2 Pages I_93-I_104
Intermediate-scale laboratory solute transport experiments were conducted in physically heterogeneous and homogeneous porous formations to investigate the impacts of upscaling of hydraulic conductivity on the behavior of solute macrodispersion. Solute transport in porous media based on geostatistics was visualized and solute macrodispersion parameters were quantified by using dye tracer imaging technique. The results showed the longitudinal and transverse macrodispersivity estimates decrease with the increase of the degree of upscaling due to a lower heterogeneity corresponding to the upscaling. The macrodispersivity estimates were almost constant in heterogeneous porous formations having the cell size of less than 6 cm, which is the correlation length of non-upscaled porous formation, whereas for large cell sizes macrodispersivity estimates depended strongly on the length of the cell. As the degree of upscaling increased, the horizontal distance between forward and backward edges of the solute plume decreased.
