Laboratory Experiments on Solute Transport in a Partial Transfixion Single Fracture

Abstract

In the study of solute transport in rough single fracture, the contact area is an important factor. The single fracture is defined as two categories in this article: the full transfixion single fracture and the partial transfixion single fracture. The purpose of this article is to research how the contact area affects the solute transport in partial transfixion single fracture. The contact area is generalized as square blocks with three sizes, and contact rate is variable, a series of experiments for solute transport were conducted in a simulation model which can simulate the two types of fractures in the laboratory. Based on the analysis of the breakthrough curves and the experiment phenomena, it is concluded that the difference of breakthrough curves of various contact rates is evident and increases with the increase of contact rate, the relative error curves reflect the difference of block sizes, and the maximum errors increase from smaller than 0.2 to about 0.8 with the increase of contact rate. These phenomena are also explained qualitatively in this article. It is concluded that the contact area strongly affects solute transport, and the research of channels formed by contact area is useful to further understand the rule of solute transport in partial transfixion single fracture.