Upgrade of Wind Tunnel/Porous Media Facility to Study Climate Effects on Near Surface Soil Moisture

1029069 Illangasekare该拨款支持升级现有的8米长的土壤罐实验中生态系统，该系统最初由先前的MRI拨款支持，随后由国防部支持，包括低速（0-10米/秒）再循环风洞外壳，可进行大气与浅层次表面之间相互作用的受控实验（深度约2米）。 资金将支持增加环境温度（-10摄氏度至35摄氏度）和湿度（5-95%）控制。 风洞土壤-大气交换系统已经配备了一个二维激光测速系统来测量速度分布，一个压力测量系统，土壤湿度和温度探头和一个x射线衰减系统来测量土壤柱内多相系统的相饱和度。 升级后的设施将支持调查非等温条件下土壤-大气界面的水和能量通量，以及环境控制对浅层地下多相交换过程的影响，这对农业水资源管理有影响，并有助于更深入地了解具有众所周知的边界条件的各种规模的水文循环。 来自实验的数据将为土壤-大气耦合过程的更准确和更现实的模型提供信息。具体应用将包括研究致密非水相液体（DNAPL），蒸汽生成和侵入地下空间，土壤冻融动力学，地表蒸发，以及地质封存的CO2泄漏到地表的潜在影响。 科罗拉多矿业学院的风洞中生态系统是大学-工业合作研究中心的一部分，该中心是地下环境过程实验研究中心，汇集了CSM不同部门的多学科研究人员，其他科罗拉多大学，行业合作伙伴以及美国和外国合作者。该设施将支持CSM和其他机构的研究人员及其学生从事地下水文学、环境科学和工程以及地质、岩土工程和石油工程等学科的工作。 ***

1029069 IllangasekareThis grant supports upgrade of an existing 8 meter long soil tank experimental mesocosm that was originally supported by a previous MRI grant and has subsequently been supported by the Department of Defense to include a low velocity (0-10 m/s) recirculating wind tunnel enclosure that allows for controlled experiments of interactions between the atmosphere and the shallow subsurface (to approximately 2 m depth). Funding will support the addition of environmental temperature (-10 deg C to 35 deg C) and humidity (5-95%) control. The wind tunnel soil-atmosphere exchange mesocosm is already equipped with a 2-d laser velocimetry system to measure velocity profiles, a pressure measuring system, soil moisture and temperature probes and an x-ray attenuation system to measure phase saturations in multiphase systems within the soil column. The upgraded facility would support investigations of water and energy fluxes across the soil-atmosphere interface under non-isothermal conditions and the environmentally controlled impacts on multiphase exchange processes in the shallow subsurface with implications for agricultural water resource management and a deeper understanding of the hydrologic cycle at a range of scales with well known boundary conditions. Data from experiments would inform more accurate and realistic models of coupled soil-atmosphere processes. Specific applications would include study of dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPL), vapor generation and intrusion into underground spaces, soil freeze/thaw dynamics, land surface evaporation, and potential impacts of leakage of geologically sequestered CO2 to the land surface. The wind tunnel mesocosm at Colorado School of Mines is part of a university-industry collaborative research center, the Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes which brings together multidisciplinary group of researchers at different departments at CSM, other Colorado universities, industry partners and US and foreign collaborators. The facility would support researchers and their students at CSM and beyond among the disciplines of subsurface hydrology, environmental sciences and engineering and geological, geotechnical and petroleum engineering. ***