Testing of NAPL simulator to predict migration of a light nonaqueous phase liquid(LNAPL) under water table fluctuation in a sandy medium

Nanoqueous phase liquid(NAPL) simulator is a powerful and popular mathematical model for modeling the flow and transport of non-aqueous phase liquids in subsurface,but the testing of its feasibility under water table fluctuation has received insufficient attention.The feature in a column test was tested through two cycles of water table fluctuation.The sandy medium in the column was initially saturated,and each cycle of water table fluctuation consisted of one water table falling and one rising,resulting in a drainage and an imbibition of the medium,respectively.It was found that the difference between the simulated and measured results in the first drainage of the column test was minor.However,with the propagation of the water table fluctuations,the simulation errors increased,and the simulation accuracy was not acceptable except for the first drainage in the two fluctuation cycles.The main reason was proved to be the estimation method of residual saturation used in this simulator.Also,based on the column tests,it was assumed that the resulting residual saturation from an incomplete imbibition process was a constant,with a value equal to that of the residual value resulting from the main imbibition process.The results obtained after modifying NAPL simulator with this assumption were found to be more accurate in the first cycle of water table fluctuation,but this accuracy decreased rapidly in the second one.It is concluded that NAPL simulator is not adequate in the case of LNAPL migration under water table fluctuation in sandy medium,unless a feasible assumption to estimate residual saturation is put forward.

Online dynamic measurement of saturation-capillary pressure relation in sandy medium under water level fluctuation

An online dynamic method based on electrical conductivity probe, tensiometer and datataker was presented to measure saturation-capillary pressure (S-p) relation in water-light nonaqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) two-phase sandy medium under water level fluctuation. Three-electrode electrical conductivity probe (ECP) was used to measure water saturation. Hydrophobic tensiometer was obtained by spraying waterproof material to the ceramic cup of commercially available hydrophilic tensiometer. A couple of hydrophilic tensiometer and hydrophobic tensiometer were used to measure pore water pressure and pore LNAPL pressure of the sandy medium, respectively. All the signals from ECP and tensiometer were collected by a data taker connected with a computer. The results show that this method can finish the measurement of S-p relation of a complete drainage or imbibition process in less than 60 min. It is much more timesaving compared with 10-40 d of traditional methods. Two cycles of water level fluctuation were produced, and four saturation-capillary pressure relations including two stable residual LNAPL saturations of the sandy medium were obtained during in 350 h. The results show that this method has a good durable performance and feasibility in the porous medium with complicated multiphase flow. Although further studies are needed on the signal stability and accuracy drift of the ECP, this online dynamic method can be used successfully in the rapid characterization of a LNAPL migration in porous media.