ANALIZA PARAMETRYCZNA KRZYWEJ PRZEJŚCIA ZNACZNIKA PRZEZ KOLUMNĘ FILTRACYJNĄ

Abstract

THE SENSITIVITY TEST FOR A BREAKTHROUGH CURVE RECORDED DURING TRACER MIGRATION IN A FILTRATION COLUMNAbstract. The shape of a breakthrough curve charactering tracer migration in a filtration column is determined by several migration processes that occur during the transport of the tracer. The research presented in this paper was based on the interpretation of a breakthrough curve. This interpretation was performed in order to establish the parameters of water flow and tracer migration in a sample of soil. The relationship between the shape of a breakthrough curve and the processes that occur in the filtration column, as well as the parameters of water flow and tracer migration, were characterized.Amathematical model of a column experiment was formulated and solved using the MATLAB computational environment. Based on the sensitivity test executed for the model, the relation between the curve’s shape and the parameters of water flow and tracer migration was established. The sensitivity test was used for the parameters included in the mathematical equation of water flow and the following migration processes: advection, diffusion, dispersion, and sorption described by the Henry, Freundlich and Langmuir equations, as well as kinetic models of sorption. Calculations were performed assuming that the tracer is briefly injected at the input of the column. Such procedure creates conditions which resemble the superposition of two Heaviside impulses shifted in time and of opposite amplitudes. The variability range of the analyzed parameters was selected in accordance with data reported in the literature on migration parameters in laboratory conditions.