A Multiphase Approach to the Modeling of Porous Media Contamination by Organic Compounds: 1. Equation Development

Abstract

A multiphase approach to the modeling of aquifer contamination by organic compounds is developed. This approach makes it possible to describe the simultaneous transport of a chemical contaminant in three physical forms: as a nonaqueous phase, as a soluble component of an aqueous phase, and as a mobile fraction of a gas phase. The contaminant may be composed of, at most, two distinct components, one of which may be volatile and slightly water soluble and the other of which is both nonvolatile and insoluble in water. Equations which describe this complex system are derived from basic conservation of mass principles by the application of volume averaging techniques and the incorporation of various constitutive relations and approximations. Effects of matrix and fluid compressibilities, gravity, phase composition, interphase mass exchange, capillarity, diffusion, and dispersion are all considered. The resulting mathematical model consists of a system of three nonlinear partial differential equations subject to two equilibrium constraints. These equations relate five unknowns: two capillary pressures and three mass fractions.