Contaminant transport in a small deformation aquitard affected by the delayed drainage phenomenon

This paper presents a formulation accounting for the effect of delayed drainage phenomenon (DDP) on the breakthrough of contaminant flux in an aquitard, by considering the movement of soil particles, porosity variation, hydraulic head variation, and transient flow during the consolidation. The water flow equation in an aquitard was based on the Terzaghi's consolidation theory, and the contaminant transport equation was derived on the basis of the mass balance law. Two cases were used to illustrate the effect of DDP on the contaminant transport in an aquitard of small deformation. It is found that the breakthrough time of contaminant in an aquitard is very long, which is mainly ascribed to the low permeability of aquitard and sorption of soil particles. It is also found that the increase of depletion, which is in general induced by the increase of thickness and specific storativity and the decrease of hydraulic conductivity, enhances the impact of DDP on the contaminant transport in an aquitard. A larger delay index (τ₀) of DDP gives a greater delay breakthrough time (DBT) of solute transport in an aquitard, which controls the difference of the breakthrough time of contaminant transport in aquitards with and without the occurrence of DDP. For the cases where advection plays a dominant role during the process of solute transport, τ₀ is almost linearly correlated with DBT, and the ratio of DBT over the breakthrough time without consideration of DDP also approximately shows a linear relationship with the ratio of specific storativity to porosity, given a fixed drawdown in the adjacent aquifer with the sorption being ignored.