A 3D Finite Element Analysis of Incompressible Fluid Flow and Contaminant Transport through a Porous Landfill
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Date
2014
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Engineering, Taylors University, Malaysia
Abstract
The paper investigated the flow of incompressible fluid and contaminant
transport through a Porous Landfill using a numerical technique. A threedimensional
finite element analysis technique was adopted for the solution. The
problem was based on the Darcy’s Law and the Advection-Dispersion equation.
The solutions of the Darcy’s and Advection-Dispersion equations were
generated using Finite Element Analysis Software known as COMSOL Multiphysics.
This simulation tool tracked the contaminant transport in the Landfill
for 360 days at 10 days interval. It first modeled steady-state fluid flow by
employing the Darcy’s Law Application Mode and then followed up with a
transient solute-transport simulation by employing the Solute-Transport
Application Mode from the Earth Science Module of COMSOL. The solution
results obtained from this model were found to be in close agreement with reallife
data obtained at the 130- million ton Bukit Tagar Mega Sanitary Landfill
site, Selangor near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This showed that the model can
effectively predict the trends in the distributions of pollutants from a Municipal
Solid Waste Landfill into nearby land and water sources. The model is thus
applicable to the issues of environmental protection and safety of groundwater.
Description
Keywords
3D-numerical, Simulation, Contaminant, Porous medium, Landfill, Ground water safety, Municipal waste managemen