D'Aniello, Andrea (2017) The Flow Behaviour of Elemental Mercury DNAPL in Porous Media. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Item Type: Tesi di dottorato
Resource language: English
Title: The Flow Behaviour of Elemental Mercury DNAPL in Porous Media
Creators:
Creators
Email
D'Aniello, Andrea
andrea.daniello@unina.it
Date: 7 April 2017
Number of Pages: 193
Institution: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Department: Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Ambientale
Dottorato: Ingegneria dei sistemi civili
Ciclo di dottorato: 29
Coordinatore del Corso di dottorato:
nome
email
Papola, Andrea
papola@unina.it
Tutor:
nome
email
Pianese, Domenico
UNSPECIFIED
Hartog, Niels
UNSPECIFIED
Cimorelli (Co-Tutor), Luigi
UNSPECIFIED
Cozzolino (Co-Tutor), Luca
UNSPECIFIED
Date: 7 April 2017
Number of Pages: 193
Keywords: elemental mercury; DNAPL; variably water saturated; multiphase flow; constitutive theory; Leverett scaling; PCE; gamma radiation; GDAn
Settori scientifico-disciplinari del MIUR: Area 08 - Ingegneria civile e Architettura > ICAR/01 - Idraulica
Area 08 - Ingegneria civile e Architettura > ICAR/02 - Costruzioni idrauliche e marittime e idrologia
Area 08 - Ingegneria civile e Architettura > ICAR/03 - Ingegneria sanitaria-ambientale
Area 09 - Ingegneria industriale e dell'informazione > ING-IND/30 - Idrocarburi e fluidi del sottosuolo
Date Deposited: 04 May 2017 15:27
Last Modified: 08 Mar 2018 14:27
URI: http://www.fedoa.unina.it/id/eprint/11617
DOI: 10.6093/UNINA/FEDOA/11617

Collection description

This thesis focuses on the characterization of the flow behaviour of elemental mercury (Hg0) DNAPL (Dense NonAqueous Phase Liquid) in porous media. In the subsurface, Hg0 DNAPL can act as a long lasting source of contamination, causing detrimental consequences for the human health and the environment. Therefore, insight into the flow behaviour of elemental mercury in porous media is needed and is critical in assessing the control of contaminant spreading as well as remediation approaches. However, the scientific literature on Hg0 DNAPL is still very limited and, to date, it remains unclear to what extent the validity of the classical constitutive relations, used to describe DNAPLs flow behaviour, as well as the scaling theory, holds for elemental mercury. These issues become crucial in partially water saturated porous media, where liquid Hg0 is likely to behave as a nonwetting phase with respect to both air and water. To address these knowledge gaps, experimental and numerical analysis were performed. In particular, the properties affecting the constitutive relations governing liquid Hg0 infiltration behaviour were explored first, using capillary pressure-saturation, Pc(S), experiments in different granular porous media, and in two- and three-phase fluid systems. Then, the infiltration and (re)distribution behaviour of Hg0 DNAPL was studied in variably water saturated stratified porous media with flow container experiments and dual gamma ray measurements of porosity and fluid saturations. Experimental results indicated that elemental mercury infiltration is strongly controlled by the porous medium water content and can be triggered by its changes due to, for example, rain events. Finally, a new theoretical formulation of elemental mercury retention properties in variably water saturated porous media was proposed and, to assess to what extent numerical modelling can predict elemental mercury migration in porous media, the flow container experiments were simulated using GDAn, the code developed by the Author.

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