Upscaling of Long-Term U9VI) Desorption from Pore Scale Kinetics to Field-Scale Reactive Transport Models (open access)

Upscaling of Long-Term U9VI) Desorption from Pore Scale Kinetics to Field-Scale Reactive Transport Models

Environmental systems exhibit a range of complexities which exist at a range of length and mass scales. Within the realm of radionuclide fate and transport, much work has been focused on understanding pore scale processes where complexity can be reduced to a simplified system. In describing larger scale behavior, the results from these simplified systems must be combined to create a theory of the whole. This process can be quite complex, and lead to models which lack transparency. The underlying assumption of this approach is that complex systems will exhibit complex behavior, requiring a complex system of equations to describe behavior. This assumption has never been tested. The goal of the experiments presented is to ask the question: Do increasingly complex systems show increasingly complex behavior? Three experimental tanks at the intermediate scale (Tank 1: 2.4m x 1.2m x 7.6cm, Tank 2: 2.4m x 0.61m x 7.6cm, Tank 3: 2.4m x 0.61m x 0.61m (LxHxW)) have been completed. These tanks were packed with various physical orientations of different particle sizes of a uranium contaminated sediment from a former uranium mill near Naturita, Colorado. Steady state water flow was induced across the tanks using constant head boundaries. Pore water was removed …
Date: January 25, 2009
Creator: Miller, Andy
System: The UNT Digital Library