Intermediate-scale Testing for Process Understanding, Model Validation and Upscaling of Flow and Transport in Heterogeneous Subsurface Systems
Tissa Illangasekare, Environmental Science and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden
ABSTRACT. Geologic heterogeneity plays a significant role in water flow and complex behavior of chemicals and waste products in the subsurface. A complete knowledge of the governing processes and how they are affected by the heterogeneity are difficult to obtain at field sites due to cost constraints and limitations of currently available technologies and methods for subsurface characterization. Characterization data limitations and lack of access and control at field sites make it difficult to validate theories and prediction models simulating complex flow and transport processes. Intermediate-scale, physical models provide cost effective alternatives that allows for the generation of accurate and high-resolution data at a range of observational scales, under controlled conditions in synthetically created aquifers that are highly instrumented for automated data acquisition. Examples involving numerical and conceptual model validation, soft and hard data assimilation in model calibration, evaluation of remediation technologies, up-scaling from laboratory to field systems and development of new sensor technologies for subsurface monitoring will be presented.