Dispersion in high-porosity porous medium

In this study, the behavior of flow and transport through a high-porosity porous medium is investigated numerically. Steady-state, 2D Navier Stokes and transient advection-diffusion equations are solved numerically to simulate water flow and tracer transport in an artificial porous medium. The simulation domain is a rectangle 2 m long and 0.5 m wide. The porous medium assumed to consist of 210 circles with diameter of 0.05 m randomly distributes throughout the domain and results in a porosity of 0.605. The results show that the behavior of flow is non-linear (non-Darcy) and follows partially turbulent flow, while the transfer transport behavior is approximately Fickian. The main reason for the behavior of transport is referred to velocity field and pattern of concentration due to presence of dead-end pores.