NUPUS: Research Project "Investigating transfer fluxes induced by turbulent free flow and affected by multiphase processes in porous media"

Flow and transport processes in domains composed of a porous medium and anadjacent free-flow region appear in a wide range of industrial, medical andenvironmental applications. Our focus is on evaporation from unsaturated soilsunder influence of a turbulent free flow. The modeling of such coupled systems is a challenging task especially at the interface of the two domains.
In preliminary work a REV-scale model has been developed, which couples theNavier-Stokes equation for the free flow with the Darcy equation for the porous-medium flow. It is possible to simulate the evaporation processes for non-isothermal, laminar conditions and a multiphase, multicomponent flow. However, there is a discrepancy between the simulated evaporation rates and rates which have been measured in lab experiments. Therefore the model will be extended with RANS turbulence models.
The vision is to develop a model which can reproduce the complex interactionbetween the two domains and predict the exchange fluxes. This is achieved with anumerical stable description for the turbulent free flow and by gaining inside into the complex processes at the interface. Different scenarios willbe analyzed with respect to the required model complexity aiming at a "intelligent interface" description and an improved modeling on the field scale.
This is a follow-up project to: Modellierung und Analyse der Bewegung von Fluid-Fluid Interfaces in porösen Medien gekoppelt mit einer freien Strömung

Helmig, Rainer

Fetzer, Thomas

LH2

04/2013 - 03/2016

International Research Training Group NUPUS

Colorado School of Mines, Forschungszentrum Jülich, ETH Zürich