Universität Stuttgart
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Item Open Access Heat transport from atmosphere through the subsurface to drinking‐water supply pipes(2023) Nissler, Elisabeth; Scherrer, Samuel; Class, Holger; Müller, Tanja; Hermannspan, Mark; Osmancevic, Esad; Haslauer, ClausDrinking‐water quality in supply pipe networks can be negatively affected by high temperatures during hot summer months due to detrimental bacteria encountering ideal conditions for growth. Thus, water suppliers are interested in estimating the temperature in their distribution networks. We investigate both experimentally and by numerical simulation the heat and water transport from ground surface into the subsurface, (i.e., above drinking‐water pipes). We consider the meteorological forcing functions by a sophisticated approach to model the boundary conditions for the heat balance at the soil-atmosphere interface. From August to December 2020, soil temperatures and soil moisture were measured dependent on soil type, land‐use cover, and weather data at a pilot site, constructed specifically for this purpose at the University of Stuttgart with polyethylene and cast‐iron pipes installed under typical in situ conditions. We included this interface condition at the atmosphere-subsurface boundary into an integrated non‐isothermal, variably saturated (Richards') the numerical simulator DuMux 3. This allowed, after calibration, to match measured soil temperatures with ±2°C accuracy. The land‐use cover influenced the soil temperature in 1.5 m more than the soil material used for back‐filling the trench above the pipe.Item Open Access High-resolution spatio-temporal measurements of the colmation phenomenon under laboratory conditions(Stuttgart : Eigenverlag des Instituts für Wasser- und Umweltsystemmodellierung der Universität Stuttgart, 2022) Mayar, Mohammad Assem; Wieprecht, Silke (Prof. Dr.-Ing.)The fine sediment infiltration and accumulation into the gravel bed of rivers, the so-called colmation phenomenon, is a pernicious process exacerbated by anthropogenic activities. Owing to the importance and complexity of this phenomenon, it has been widely studied over the last decades. Various devices and methods have been developed to assess this phenomenon, where most of them are destructive and sample-based, resulting in an alteration of the natural conditions. Therefore, non-intrusive techniques, which provide spatial and temporal details with a high-resolution, are required to discretize the mechanisms involved in the colmation process. To address these issues, investigations under laboratory conditions may simplify the complexity of nature and enable individual and exactly defined boundary conditions to be investigated. Therefore, this thesis aims at (i) developing a non-intrusive and undisturbed measurement method for the high-resolution spatio-temporal measurements of the sediment infiltration processes and the development of sediment accumulation in an artificial river bed under laboratory conditions, (ii) applying this method to certain experiments for the assessment of the effects of different boundary conditions on sediment infiltration, and (iii) investigating the colmation phenomenon (also known as clogging) of gravel beds. For this purpose, the gamma-ray attenuation method is used together with an artificial gravel bed arranged from the spheres with various diameters and placed in a laboratory flume. This new method works based on the gamma radiation that passes through the infiltrated sediments, water, and bed spheres, in which the gamma-ray attenuation is linked to the variations of the infiltrated sediments’ quantity. The main simplification of this approach is that gravel beds are represented by the combinations of different-sized spheres. This gives the opportunity to fully distinguish infiltrating sediments from the bed material, reduce the complexity of the natural environment, and allows for repetitive measurements of the same position with different boundary conditions. From the results of this study, first, the gamma-ray attenuation measurement method was optimized to resolve the inconsistencies in the measurements. Subsequently, the concept of the non-intrusive and undisturbed measurement is proved through box experiments. Additional reproducibility experiments in the laboratory flume, for a similar bed structure, showed only small deviations between two experiments with the same setup. Consequently, the established technique was used in a series of experiments to evaluate the effects of different supply rates, total supply masses, and sediment particle size boundary conditions on the sediment infiltration and colmation processes. Vertical profiles of the infiltrated sediment were quantified through high spatial resolution measurements. Furthermore, to evaluate the infiltrating sediment accumulation development, and the temporal variations of the infiltrated sediments, the vertical profile measurements were first repeated after a specific time-period to track interval-averaged variations in all positions of the vertical axis. Next, a specific position of the vertical axis was measured continuously during the entire experiment in a high temporal resolution. The measured vertical profiles illustrate the vertical distribution, colmation, and unimpeded percolation of the infiltrated sediments. The dynamic one-point measurement precisely identifies the three phases (the start of the pore-filling, the required time to fill the pore, and the final amount of infiltrated sediments including natural fluctuation during the ongoing experiments) of the sediment infiltration or the possible clogging. As a limitation, the gamma-ray attenuation system’s current configuration only works in artificial gravel beds because of the given density difference between infiltrated sediments and the artificial bed structure. Intense radiations that pass through the natural bed's thickness are capable of detecting a significant amount of infiltrated sediments. However, small amounts of infiltrated sediments will create only a minimal shift in attenuation, which might be confused with the statistical error. In addition, the legal restriction against using radioactive material in the natural environment is another reason for not applying it in the field. Furthermore, the gamma-ray attenuation method cannot resolve the sediment distribution in the measurement horizon and provides an integrative result for each measurement position. In addition, if a mixture of silt, clay, and sand is supplied to the experiment, the gamma-ray attenuation system will produce a bulk result of all the infiltrated materials. To conclude, despite the limitations mentioned above, the gamma-ray attenuation method offers a unique opportunity for the non-intrusive and undisturbed measurements of the sediment infiltration or the special case of colmation, with a high spatio-temporal resolution. This method has the potential to quantify the investigated processes on a millimetric spatial scale, if the measurement time is not a constraint, or vice versa, in a high temporal resolution (seconds) for a specific position, if spatial scale is not important. Moreover, the gamma-ray attenuation approach can simultaneously measure the longitudinal distribution of the sedimentological processes, if multiple instruments or a single device with several radiation-emitting-holes is in operation. Last, but not least, rather than the spheres, artificial gravel beds could be made of any substance with a composition significantly different from the infiltrating sediments, and the boundary conditions of the experiments can be improved in order to attain conditions close to nature. Finally, the gamma-ray attenuation method can be integrated with advanced flow measurement instruments such as Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and other high-resolution endoscopic devices to track the behavior of fine sediment infiltration and its clogging process in the porous gravel beds as it occurs in nature.Item Open Access Introduction to air-water flows(1991) Kobus, HelmutFor many hydraulic structures, safe operation can only be achieved if not only the characteristics of the water flow are considered, but due attention is also given to the simultaneous movement of air in the system. Although the difference in specific weight of air and water is so large that they are usually well separated by a sharp interface, a number of flow configurations lead to an intensive mixing across this surface. This process is called air entrainment. Consideration of the effects of entrained air upon water flow may be essential to provide for the safe operation of a hydraulic structure.Item Open Access Application of a non-parametric classification scheme to catchment hydrology(2008) He, Yi; Bárdossy, András (Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr.-Ing. habil.)Classification has been considered a fundamental step towards improved catchment hydrology science. Catchments classification has been traditionally carried out via Linnaeus-type cluster analysis, mainly represented by hierarchical approaches and methods based on partitioning of hydrological data set. This paper proposes a new scheme where the classification procedure is based on similarity interpreted as distances between catchments. The similarity or distance is defined under the following premises: 1. similar catchments behave similarly; 2. similarity can be described with catchments' characteristics; and 3. hydrological models are able to capture catchments' similarity. If many sets of model parameters lead to similar model performance for two catchments, they are considered as similar catchments. To implement the proposed scheme, two procedures, namely multidimensional scaling (MDS) and local variance reduction (LVR), are undertaken to construct a configuration of n catchments' characteristics in Euclidean space using information about similar performance between the catchments. The MDS is used to determine the appropriate dimension of the Euclidean space and the LVR is used to obtain the transformation matrix and the coordinates in the transformed Euclidean space. This scheme avoids the idea of parametric regression-based regionalization approaches where a regression function is pre-defined between model parameters and catchment descriptors. In the aforementioned approach, the function that is selected is usually subjective and arbitrary and one can also argue that a priori function is neither able to represent the highly complex hydrological processes nor consider the interdependences amongst model parameters. The proposed scheme is initially tested with a research version of the HBV-IWS model on a number of catchments within the Rhine Basin. Additionally a modified Xinanjiang model is applied to the same catchments to check if the assumption of invariant catchment similarity holds true. Invariant catchment similarity here assumes the catchments genuinely carry their similarities independent of the model used for simulation. This test is also a backstop measure to determine if the models under consideration are capturing the underlying simplified hydrological processes in a rational manner. The scheme will be extended to regional calibration of rainfall runoff models as well as regional drought or flood studies once similarity within catchments has been established. The proposed scheme will eventually contribute to the PUB (Predictions in Ungauged Basins) initiative.Item Open Access Magnetic resonance imaging of water content and flow processes in natural soils by pulse sequences with ultrashort detection(2021) Haber-Pohlmeier, Sabina; Caterina, David; Blümich, Bernhard; Pohlmeier, AndreasMagnetic resonance imaging is a valuable tool for three-dimensional mapping of soil water processes due to its sensitivity to the substance of interest: water. Since conventional gradient- or spin-echo based pulse sequences do not detect rapidly relaxing fractions of water in natural porous media with transverse relaxation times in the millisecond range, pulse sequences with ultrafast detection open a way out. In this work, we compare a spin-echo multislice pulse sequence with ultrashort (UTE) and zero-TE (ZTE) sequences for their suitability to map water content and its changes in 3D in natural soil materials. Longitudinal and transverse relaxation times were found in the ranges around 80 ms and 1 to 50 ms, respectively, so that the spin echo sequence misses larger fractions of water. In contrast, ZTE and UTE could detect all water, if the excitation and detection bandwidths were set sufficiently broad. More precisely, with ZTE we could map water contents down to 0.1 cm3/cm3. Finally, we employed ZTE to monitor the development of film flow in a natural soil core with high temporal resolution. This opens the route for further quantitative imaging of soil water processes.Item Open Access An example of a combined discharge-control and aeration structure(1983) Kobus, Helmut; Westrich, BernhardThe design of a hydraulic structure in a cooling water circuit is described which serves the dual purpose of controlling the water levels in the system upstream and of providing a maximum oxygen uptake without discharging large amounts of air into the subsequent pressure duct in order to avoid blow-out problems.Item Open Access Climate sensitivity of a large lake(2013) Eder, Maria Magdalena; Bárdossy, András (Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr.-Ing.)Lakes are complex ecosystems that are on the one hand more or less enclosed by defined borders, but are on the other hand connected to their environment, especially to their catchment and the atmosphere. This study is examinig the climate sensitivity of large lakes using Lake Constance as an example. The lake is situated in Central Europe at the northern edge of the Alps, at the boundary of Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The maximum depth is 235 m, the total surface area is 535 km³ and the total volume 48.45 km². The numerical simulations in this study have been performed with the lake model system ELCOM-CAEDYM. The model system was validated using three different data sets: Observations of a turbid underflow after a flood flow in the main tributary, a lake-wide field campaign of temperature and phytoplankton, and long term monitoring data of temperature and oxygen in the hypolimion. The model system proved to be able to reproduce the effects of a flood flow in the largest tributary,. A huge turbid underflow was observed flowing into the main basin after an intense rain event in the Alps in August 2005. A numerical experiment showed the influence of the earth’s rotation on the flow path of the riverine water within the lake. The model also reproduced the temperature evolution and distribution and to some extent the phytoplankton patchiness measured in spring 2007 during an intensive field campaign. The model reproduced the measured time series of temperature and oxygen in the deep hypolimnion measured in the years 1980-2000. This indicates, that the vertical mixing and the lake’s cycle of mixing and stratification was reproduced correctly. Based on the model set-up validated with long term monitoring data, climate scenario simulations were run. The main focus was on temperature and oxygen concentrations in the hypolimnion, the cycle of stratification and mixing, and the heat budget of the lake. The meteorological boundary conditions for the climate scenario simulations were generated using a weather generator instead of downscaling climate projections from Global Climate Models. This approach gives the possibility to change different characteristics of the climate independently. The resulting lake model simulations are ”what-if”-scenarios rather than predictions, helping to obtain a deeper understanding of the processes in the lake. The main results can be summarized as follows: An increase in air temperature leads to an increase in water temperature, especially in the upper layers. The deep water temperature increases as well, but not to the same extent as the temperature of the epilimnion. This results in an increased vertical temperature difference. Due to the non-linear shape of the temperature-density curve, the difference in density grows even stronger than the temperature difference. This results in enhanced stratification stability, and consequently in less mixing. Complete mixing of the lake becomes more seldom in a warmer climate, but even in the scenario simulations with air temperature increased by 5 °C, full circulation took place every 3-4 years. Less complete mixing events lead to less oxygen in the hypolimnion. Additionally, as many biogeochemical processes are temperature dependant, the oxygen consumption rate is larger in warmer water. In the context of this study, climate variability is defined as episodes with daily average air temperatures deviating from the long-term average for this day of year. The episodes can be described by their duration in days and their amplitude in °C. Changes in climate variability can have very different effects, depending on the average air and water temperatures. The effects are stronger in lakes with higher water temperatures: For the hypolimnetic conditions, the seasonality in warming is important: Increasing winter air temperatures have a much stronger effect on the water temperatures in the lake than increasing summer temperatures. The combined effects of a warmer climate and higher nutrient concentrations enhances oxygen depletion in the hypolimnion. Finally, it is discussed, to what extent the results of this study are transferrable to other lakes. The reactions of Lake Constance to climate change are determined by the physical, geographical and ecological characteristics of the lake. Hydrodynamic reactions are defined by the mixing type, water temperatures and the residence time of the water in the lake. Furthermore it is important that the lake is almost never completely ice-covered, and that there are only minor salinity differences. The reactions of the ecosystem are determined also by the oligotrophic state of the lake. Results of this study thus can be transferred to other deep, monomictic, oligotrophic fresh water lakes, as for example the other large perialpine lakes of glacial origin.Item Open Access Comparison study of phase-field and level-set method for three-phase systems including two minerals(2022) Kelm, Mathis; Gärttner, Stephan; Bringedal, Carina; Flemisch, Bernd; Knabner, Peter; Ray, NadjaWe investigate reactive flow and transport in evolving porous media. Solute species that are transported within the fluid phase are taking part in mineral precipitation and dissolution reactions for two competing mineral phases. The evolution of the three phases is not known a-priori but depends on the concentration of the dissolved solute species. To model the coupled behavior, phase-field and level-set models are formulated. These formulations are compared in three increasingly challenging setups including significant mineral overgrowth. Simulation outcomes are examined with respect to mineral volumes and surface areas as well as derived effective quantities such as diffusion and permeability tensors. In doing so, we extend the results of current benchmarks for mineral dissolution/precipitation at the pore-scale to the multiphasic solid case. Both approaches are found to be able to simulate the evolution of the three-phase system, but the phase-field model is influenced by curvature-driven motion.Item Open Access Parallele Numerische Simulation instationärer Probleme mit adaptiven Methoden auf unstrukturierten Gittern(2001) Lang, Stefan; Helmig, Rainer (Prof. Dr. Ing.)Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Numerische Simulation von partiellen Differentialgleichungen mit den aktuellen Methoden: Mehrgitterverfahren, lokale Gitteradaption und Parallelität. Besonders Aspekte des Softwareengineerings und der Implementierung werden im Detail betrachtet. Diese Methoden werden durch paralleles I/0 und parallele Graphik zu einer skalierbaren Toolkette erweitert. Anhand von drei Gleichungstypen: Dichtegetriebene Grundwasserströmung, Zweiphasen-Strömung und Elastoplastizität wird die Leistungsfähigkeit der realisierten Simulationsplattform untersucht. Beispielsweise konnte bei einer Simulation auf 512 Prozessoren eine Beschleungiung von mehr als 300 erzielt werden.Item Open Access Numerical investigations of the role of hysteresis in heterogeneous two-phase flow systems(2008) Papafotiou, Alexandros; Helmig, Rainer (Prof. Dr.-Ing.)Various groundwater applications often involve the flow of two immiscible fluids in heterogeneous porous media. In problems that involve the assessment of travel times of hazardous substances in the unsaturated zone or monitoring and predicting the fate of groundwater contaminations, efficient tools and approaches need to be developed to achieve accurate predictions of two-phase flow behavior in heterogeneous porous media. However, this is not an easy task, as heterogeneities -observed on different spatial scales- have a strong influence on the distribution of the fluid phases and therefore form a significant source of uncertainty. Moreover, the prediction of two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media becomes complicated through alternating drainage and imbibition conditions taking place in the complex heterogeneous pore structure that lead to hysteresis effects in the capillary pressure-saturation relationship. Numerical simulations are widely used to predict hysteretic two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media in lab or field applications. This approach, however, demands good knowledge on the hydraulic properties of the materials that form the heterogeneous structures involved in the application. Traditionally, the hydraulic properties and the hysteretic behavior of porous media are empirically determined on the local scale with lab experiments conducted on material samples. On the other hand, alternative methods suggest the direct determination of hydraulic properties, including hysteretic capillary pressure-saturation relationships, from a pore-scale consideration. This is done using available information on the pore structure of a material. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how accurate predictions can be in problems of hysteretic two-phase flow in porous media, even when advanced state-of-the-art methods are used on different scales for the determination of the hydraulic properties. The first part of this thesis deals with the implementation of two hysteresis concepts in a numerical model for the simulation of two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media. Special attention is given on the combination of the hysteresis concepts with a capillary interface condition for the treatment of material interfaces and the approximation of saturation discontinuities due to heterogeneities. This provides an efficient and consistent approach for the prediction of hysteretic two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media. In the second part, predictions made with the numerical implementations of the hysteresis concepts are compared to measurements from a 1-D monitored transient experiment, that involves successive alternating drainage and imbibition conditions. Conclusions related to the importance of hysteresis and the possibilities of the applied hysteresis concepts are drawn. Furthermore, the comparative study presents remarks on the beneficial combination of different approaches -from the modeling and the experimental viewpoint- that lead to reliable predictions on hysteretic two-phase flow. The last part of this work focuses on predictions of hysteretic two-phase flow made with hydraulic properties determined on different spatial scales. In this case, numerical simulations of drainage and imbibition are compared to experimental measurements in a 3-D heterogeneous structure. The hydraulic properties that are used as input for the numerical simulations are determined with two approaches: -On the local scale with multistep outflow/inflow experiments. -On the pore scale with advanced image analysis and lattice Boltzmann flow simulations in mapped sand geometries. The comparative study in this case reveals the possibilities for predictions of hysteretic two-phase flow made with hydraulic properties determined on different scales (local and pore scale), indicates sensitivities in such hydraulic properties, reveals the significant influence of material interfaces in heterogeneous structures and finally detects the apparent temporal- and spatial-scale dependency of non-wetting phase trapping effects during imbibition processes. Conclusions related to the observed hysteresis are drawn, considering the assumptions and the conceptual differences involved in the different approaches. Finally the comparison between simulations and experiment triggers a discussion on the potentials of our modeling approaches in the case of heterogeneous structures, shows how one needs to approach applications of hysteretic two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media and what aspects must be taken into account when dealing with different scales.