Bail-Down Test Simulation at Laboratory Scale

• Published in: Transport in porous media Vol. 116; no. 2; pp. 567 - 583
• Main Authors: Palmier, Cédric, Cazals, Florian, Atteia, Olivier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Boundary conditions; Calibration; Civil Engineering; Classical and Continuum Physics; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer simulation; Conductivity; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Exact solutions; Fluid flow; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Groundwater; Hydraulics; Hydrogeology; Hydrology/Water Resources; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Laboratories; Mathematical models; Porous media; Sand; Test procedures; Hydraulic oil conductivity; Bail-down test; Modified Cooper (Beckett and Lyverse 2002); Modified Bouwer and Rice (Huntley 2000)
• ISSN: 0169-3913; 1573-1634
• DOI: 10.1007/s11242-016-0790-z

This paper presents a comparison of hydraulic oil conductivity obtained from interpreting bail-down test data to values calculated from theory. The bail-down tests were performed at laboratory scale, on a radial portion of a circular domain filled with calibrated sand allowing hydraulic oil conductivity to be calculated using Parker’s theoretical model (Parker et al. in Water Resour Res 23(4):618–624, 1987 ). The bail-down tests were interpreted using the modified Bouwer and Rice (Huntley in Ground Water 38(1):46–52, 2000 ) and the modified Cooper methods (Beckett and Lyverse in API Interact LNAPL Guide 2:1–27, 2002 ). The results show that (1) both interpretation methods from bail-down test data give similar hydraulic oil conductivities, and (2) the hydraulic oil conductivities estimated from bail-down test data agree well with the hydraulic oil conductivity predicted when using the Parker theoretical model. Overall, this paper confirms that the modified Bouwer and Rice (Huntley 2000 ) and the modified Cooper methods (Beckett and Lyverse 2002 ) are valid to estimate hydraulic oil conductivity, giving realistic values despite test conditions not meeting all the assumptions and boundary conditions of each analytical solution.