Collaborative Research: Critical Assessment of Coupled Flow Behavior in Unsaturated Clay Barriers

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This project seeks to advance the state of the art as it relates to modeling and evaluating coupled unsaturated flow in waste containment systems. Such systems are vital to securing nuclear, hazardous and municipal waste throughout the country. If successful, the new models will address behavior that is currently unaccounted for and approximated with physically inaccurate simplifications. The collaboration strategically leverages the strengths at each institution to address experimental and theoretical objectives. The goal of this research is to evaluate the existence and significance of chemico-osmosis and membrane behavior in unsaturated clays. A collaborative experimental and theoretical approach will be employed to achieve this goal. The overall objectives are: (1) to develop and evaluate an innovative apparatus for measuring membrane behavior and quantifying coupled fluid and chemical transport in unsaturated clays; (2) to clarify the direct and coupled driving forces governing fluid and chemical fluxes; (3) to measure governing parameters on unsaturated soils under conditions representing practical problems; (4) to develop a model for solute transport under unsaturated conditions that incorporates membrane behavior, and (5) to quantify the importance of coupling as a function of the degree of saturation and solute concentration in soils typical of barrier materials