ABSTRACT
Solute transport model has been the subject of intense research effort in recent years. The motivations are contamination transport and groundwater pollution with a great social impact. Classical numerical solution methods of the pollutant transport equation required restrictive spatial discretization in order to avoid numerical dispersion. The reason for this behaviour lies in the double nature of the transport equation: convection term is hyperbolic while dispersion term is parabolic. This work illustrates an attempt of modelling contaminant transport using measurements. A finite element solution of two dimensional diffusivity equation forms the flow simulation, while a particle tracking random walk solution of the two dimensional convection-dispersion equation forms the basis of the transport simulation.
Comparisons with analytical and numerical solutions and experimental data shows the reliability and advantages of this solution and the random walk method offers a robust alternative for modelling contaminant transport, which represents both the convective and the dispersive transport by individual particle stepping.
