Free-Flow–Porous-Media Coupling for Evaporation-Driven Transport and Precipitation of Salt in Soil

Publikationstyp
Journal Article
Date Issued
2015-11-01
Sprache
English
Author(s)
Jambhekar, V. A.  
Helmig, Rainer  
Schröder, Meike  
Shokri, Nima  
TORE-URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11420/10671
Journal
Transport in porous media  
Volume
110
Issue
2
Start Page
251
End Page
280
Citation
Transport in Porous Media 110 (2): 251-280 (2015-11-01)
Publisher DOI
10.1007/s11242-015-0516-7
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84944352462
Evaporative salinization of soil is a common issue observed in arid and coastal regions. This process is driven by mass, momentum and energy exchange between the porous medium and the free-flow region. To analyze such coupled systems, we present a representative elementary volume-scale model concept for coupling non-isothermal multi-phase compositional porous-media flow and single-phase compositional laminar free flow. Our numerical results illustrate evaporation behavior from a porous medium initially saturated with NaCl solution, manifesting its influence on dissolved salt distribution, salt precipitation and porous-media properties. We show that the new model is capable to capture the evaporation physics for different stages of evaporative salinization and compare the numerical results to two different experimental datasets: (1) cumulative mass loss of water and dissolved salt during stage-1 of saline water evaporation and (2) evaporation rate for different stages of evaporative salinization. In addition, influence of the initial salt concentration on the saline water saturation vapor pressure and transition to stage-2 evaporation are analyzed and discussed.
Subjects
Coupling
Evaporation
Free flow
Porous-media
Salinization