ChaosAD – Chaotic ADvection and Mixing Enhancement in Porous Media: The Quest for Experimental Evidence

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gabriele Chiogna, since 1/2023
• Subject Area: Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491075276

Mixing of fluids is of primary importance in many fields of science and technology. Considering porous media, mixing processes are generally inefficient, but mixing enhancement can be potentially achieved by enhancing plume deformation through stretching and folding engineering the flow field using injection-extraction systems orin systems naturally displaying a complex transient dynamic such as the effect of tides. Previous studies have been performed at multiple scales (i.e. pore-scale, Darcy-scale, field and regional scale) mainly utilizing theoretical and modeling approaches, while experimental studies performed under controlled conditions are sparse. The proposed research aims at providing experimental evidence of the effects of chaotic advection on solute transport in saturated porous media under controlled laboratory conditions. The experimental work will be accompanied by the development of new advanced numericalmethods developed in the DUNE (Distributed Unified Numerics Environment) environment to perform an accurate model-based interpretation of the results. In addition, multi-parametric studies will also be performed in order to explore realistic scenarios which arebeyond the scope of laboratory experiments. This research project is innovative since it will investigate: 1) the effect of non-linear velocity dependence of dispersion and non-Fickian transport on chaotic advection; 2) the effect of incomplete mixing at the pore scale on the effective mixing enhancement due to chaotic advection; 3) the effectof the retardation and density effects affecting solute transport of chemically relevant species on the mixing enhancement achieved through chaotic advection; 4) the effect of chaotic advection on reactive processes. Moreover, we aim at providing a link betweenmetrics describing chaotic advection and mixing at the Darcy scale which is actually missing and it can be achieved using a model-based interpretation of the experimental results collected in this research project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Denmark, United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Stefan Krause; Professor Massimo Rolle, Ph.D.
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Tanu Singh, Ph.D., until 12/2022