Effect of fracture-skin on virus transport in fractured porous media

N. Natarajan, G. Suresh Kumar
2012 Geoscience Frontiers  
A numerical model is developed for describing the transport of virus in a fracture-matrix coupled system with fracture-skin. An advective dispersive virus transport equation, including firstorder sorption and inactivation constant is used for simulating the movement of viruses. Implicit finite-difference numerical technique is used to solve the coupled non-linear governing equations for the triple continuum model consisting of fracture, fracture-skin and the rock-matrix. A varying grid is
more » ... d at the fracture and fracture-skin interface to capture the mass transfer. Sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the effect of various properties of the fracture-skin as well as viruses on the virus concentration in the fractured formation with fracture-skin. Simulation results suggest that the virus concentration in the fracture decreases with increment in the fracture-skin porosity, fracture-skin diffusion coefficient, mass transfer coefficient, inactivation constant and sorption distribution coefficient, and with reduction in the fracture aperture. ª
doi:10.1016/j.gsf.2012.03.004 fatcat:e4qugqm2zbgctipn7njxs7o2ge