Upscaling and reversibility of Taylor dispersion in heterogeneous porous media

Abstract

Tracer flow in stratified porous media is dominated by the interaction between convective transport and transverse diffusive mixing. By averaging the tracer concentration in the transverse direction, a one-dimensional non-Fickian dispersion model is derived. The model accounts for the relaxation process that reduces the convective transport to dispersive mixing. This process is (short-) time correlated and partially reversible upon reversal of flow direction. For multiscale velocity fields, the relaxation is a multiscale process. To date only single scale processes have been successfully upscaled. Our procedure extends this to multiscale processes, using scale separation. The model parameters can be calculated a priori based on the velocity profile. For periodic flow reversal, the results are essentially the same. Despite the non-Fickian behavior during a cycle, the net contribution of each cycle to the spreading relaxes to a Fickian process in a similar way as for unidirectional flow. The cycle time averaged dispersion coefficient is a monotonically increasing function of the reversal time. It asymptotically converges towards the effective dispersion coefficient in the absence of flow reversal.