Comparison of the performance of traditional advection-dispersion equation and mobile-immobile model for simulating solute transport in heterogeneous soils

The traditional advection-dispersion equation(ADE) and the mobile-immobile model(MIM) are widely used to describe solute transport in heterogeneous porous media. However, the fitness of the two models is casedependent. In this paper, the transport of conservative,adsorbing and degradable solutes through a 1 m heterogeneous soil column under steady flow condition was simulated by ADE and MIM, and sensitivity analysis was conducted. Results show that MIM tends to prolong the breakthrough process and decrease peak concentration for all three solutes, and tailing and skewness are more pronounced with increasing dispersivity. Breakthrough curves of the adsorbing solute simulated by MIM are less sensitive to the retardation factor compared with the results simulated by ADE. The breakthrough curves of degradable solute obtained by MIM and ADE nearly overlap with a high degradation rate coefficient, indicating that MIM and ADE perform similarly for simulating degradable solute transport when biochemical degradation prevails over the mass exchange between mobile and immobile zones. The results suggest that the physical significance of dispersivity should be carefully considered when MIM is applied to simulate the degradable solute transport and/or ADE is applied to simulate the adsorbing solute transport in highly dispersive soils.

Three dimensional microstructures and wear resistance of Al-Bi immiscible alloys with different grain refiners

The three dimensional(3D) microstructures of Al-Bi alloys with different grain refiners(Al-5Ti-B, Al-3B and Al-3Ti) have been studied using synchrotron X-ray microtomography. The relationships between the microstructures and the corresponding wear behavior are verified through the friction and wear tests. The worn surfaces of the samples with grain refiners tested under 15 and 60 N loads are analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM). The results indicate that the addition of grain refiners is beneficial to the size and distribution of the Bi-rich particles in Al-Bi alloys. Compared with Al-5Ti-B and Al-3B grain refiners, the Bi-rich particles are more uniformly distributed and spherical with finer size with the addition of Al-3Ti grain refiner. The refinement renders the Al-20wt%Bi alloy refined by Al-3Ti the superior wear resistance with respect to those refined by Al-5Ti-B and Al-3B grain refiners, corresponding to the microstructures with fine and uniformly distributed Bi-rich particles in the Al matrix.