Effect of soil textural characteristics on longitudinal dispersion in saturated porous media

This study focuses on the effects of soil textural heterogeneity on longitudinal dispersion under saturation conditions. A series of solute transport experiments were carried out using saturated soil columns packed with two filter sands and two mixtures of these sands, having d₅₀ values of 95, 324, 402, and 480 µm, subjected to four different steady flow rates. Values of the dispersion coefficient (D) were estimated from observed in-situ distributions of calcium chlo-ride, injected as a short nonreactive tracer pulse, at four different locations (11, 18, 25, 36 cm). Analyses of the observed distributions in terms of the standard advection-dispersion equation (ADE) showed that D increased nonlinearly with travel distance and higher Peclet numbers+. The dispersion coefficient of sand sample S1 with its largest average particle size (d₅₀) was more affected by the average pore-water velocity than sample S4 having the smallest d₅₀. Results revealed that for a constant velocity, D values of sample S1 were much higher than those of sample S4, which had the smallest d₅₀. A correlation matrix of parameters controlling the dispersion coefficient showed a relatively strong positive relationship between D and the Peclet number. In contrast, almost no correlation was evident between D and porosity as well as grain size. The results obtained with the four sandy matrices were consistent and proved that the dispersion coefficient depends mainly on the particle size.