Stochastic flow simulation and particle transport in a 2D layer of random porous medium

Abstract

A stochastic numerical method is developed for simulation of flows and particle transport in a 2D layer of porous medium. The hydraulic conductivity is assumed to be a random field of a given statistical structure, the flow is modeled in the layer with prescribed boundary conditions. Numerical experiments are carried out by solving the Darcy equation for each sample of the hydraulic conductivity by a direct solver for sparse matrices, and tracking Lagrangian trajectories in the simulated flow. We present and analyze different Eulerian and Lagrangian statistical characteristics of the flow such as transverse and longitudinal velocity correlation functions, longitudinal dispersion coefficient, and the mean displacement of Lagrangian trajectories. We discuss the effect of long-range correlations of the longitudinal velocities which we have found in our numerical simulations. The related anomalous diffusion is also analyzed.