Non-Darcy Flow of Water Through a Packed Column Test

• Published in: Transport in porous media Vol. 101; no. 2; pp. 215 - 227
• Main Authors: Sedghi-Asl, Mohammad, Rahimi, Hassan, Salehi, Reza
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 2014; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Civil Engineering; Classical and Continuum Physics; Computational fluid dynamics; Darcys law; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics; Exact sciences and technology; Flow velocity; Fluid flow; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Granular materials; Hydrogeology; Hydrology. Hydrogeology; Hydrology/Water Resources; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Laboratories; Mathematical analysis; Packed columns; Pollution, environment geology; Porous media; Reynolds number; Turbulent flow; Packed column test; NOF criterion; Rounded aggregate; Ergun equation; Head-loss equation; experimental studies; hydraulics; ground water; granular materials; transport; velocity; porous media
• ISSN: 0169-3913; 1573-1634
• DOI: 10.1007/s11242-013-0240-0

As the flow velocity and Reynolds number increase in rockfilled porous media, the flow deviates from Darcy conditions and enters into a new phase known as non-Darcy conditions. Due to a linear relationship between hydraulic gradient and the flow velocity in Darcy formula, the flow can be analyzed with no difficulty. However, as the velocity increases the Darcy law is violated, the flow becomes turbulent, making the analysis more challenging. In this paper a laboratory packed column was built to study high-velocity flow through granular materials and new experimental data have been obtained. The laboratory experiments include application of for six different sizes of rounded aggregates and using different hydraulic gradients to assess the flow behavior. Using new experimental data, the validity of four widely-used head-loss equations were evaluated. The results indicated that the Sidiropoulou et al. (Hydrol Process 21:534–554, 2007 ) and Ergun’s head-loss equations yield satisfactory results comparing to other available relationships.