In this study, the lattice Boltzmann method(LBM) was used to simulate the solute transport in a single rough fracture. The self-affine rough fracture wall was generated with the successive random addition method. The ability of the developed LBM to simulate the solute transport was validated by Taylor dispersion. The effect of fluid velocity on the solute transport in a single rough fracture was investigated using the LBM. The breakthrough curves(BTCs) for continuous injection sources in rough fractures were analyzed and discussed with different Reynolds numbers(Re). The results show that the rough fracture wall leads to a large fluid velocity gradient across the aperture. Consequently, there is a broad distribution of the immobile region along the rough fracture wall. This distribution of the immobile region is very sensitive to the Re and fracture geometry, and the immobile region is enlarged with the increase of Re and roughness. The concentration of the solute front in the mobile region increases with the Re. Furthermore, the Re and roughness have significant effects on BTCs, and the slow solute molecule exchange between the mobile and immobile regions results in a long breakthrough tail for the rough fracture. This study also demonstrates that the developed LBM can be effective in studying the solute transport in a rough fracture.
In this paper, the developed lattice Boltzmann method(LBM) is used to model the solute transport in a filled fracture under a heterogeneous advective velocity field. The results of the developed LBM in modelling the solute transport are compared with the published experimental data. The numerically derived BTCs indicate that the distribution of the filled medium in the fracture has a significant effect on the characteristics of the BTCs, even with the same porosity. The heterogeneity of the filled medium is responsible not only for the heterogeneous advective velocity field but also for the early arrival and long tails of the BTCs. The long tailings of the BTCs increase their length with the increase of the duration of the input pulse. Furthermore, the BTCs obtained from the LBM simulations are well consistent with the two-region model(TRM). The fitting results show that the fractional mobile region varies with the distribution of the filled medium. The long tailings of the BTCs increase their length with the increase of the immobile region while the concentration peak value increases with the increase of the mobile region.
