ABSTRACT
Contaminant mass transport through porous media is usually described by well-established conventional advection dispersion transport models with the ability to account for advection, dispersion, and sorption. Since the mid-20th century, numerous researchers have worked on the advection-dispersion equation (ADE) in fully saturated soil environments. Most previous studies were based on the assumption of rigid porous media that the volume of the porous media does not change and advective flow was only induced by an external hydraulic gradient. In fact, soil volume change (i.e., soil consolidation) occurs simultaneously with solute transport in many cases. In such cases, the coupled effect of soil deformation and solute transport needs to be considered. Modeling of contaminant transport through deformable porous media has received attention during the last two decades. In this chapter, with the coupled Terzaghi consolidation and ADE equation (advection-diffusion equation), a small strain model is employed to investigate the consolidation-induced solute transport in unsaturated porous media. The case of a landfill liner is considered as an application of the proposed model. Both single soil and layered soil are considered.
