Computational and Experimental Simulation of Pollutant Transport through Multiple Porous Media

Abstract

The huge industrial development that has taken place in recent decades and what it poses of large amounts of pollutants to the soil and the natural processes that occur in the migration of some pollutants such as oil and others in the soil have become one of the biggest pollution problems and thus the problem of obtaining information to find solutions has become more complex. This research was carried out to develop a CFD simulation model for simulating the transmission of contaminants via soil's multi-porous medium Consisting of four real porous media were used from Iraqi soil, representing the sand, sandy gravel, organic, and calcareous soil. To explore the process of transferring pollutants inside the porous medium, a physical model and simulation model were built and executed with the aid of CFD programs using COMSOL 5.4 software to investigate the transport of pollutants via porous material. Several categories of variables were studied and assumed to analyze the situation. The first group is interested in the media's physical qualities, such as the coefficient of adoption Kd while the hydraulic component of flow, such as velocity, was represented by the second group. To adopt the CFD simulated model in obtaining the required results, it is necessary to check the results of the CFD simulated model with its counterparts obtained from the physical model that was prepared for this purpose. Therefore, according to numerous statistical indicators, the results of the laboratory work supplied by the physical model and those of the CFD model were in excellent accord. This suggests that CFD models might be a useful tool for simulating the complicated challenges of contaminant transport across porous media. It is also considered a tool with effort, time, and low cost. So, based on the CFD models, the results revealed that the coefficient of adsorption (Kd) action has a noticeable influence on soil physical characteristics. While the results confirmed that the effect of the speed coefficient was small compared with the effect of(kd).