M³ : a multiphase, multiconstituant and multiprocess code to model contaminated

Abstract

International audience70% of the contaminated sites in France are with organic compounds (hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents,…). Modeling such contamination can be difficult as it is governed by numerous and highly coupled mechanisms (multiphase flow, dissolution and volatilization of Non Aqueous Phase Liquids(NAPL), sorption and biodegradation). Whereas many numerical codes include some of these mechanisms, none of them, to our knowledge, allows the modeling of the full set of mechanisms. A new code, called M3 for Multiphase, Multicomponent, Multiprocess, is then being developed to address this kind of modeling. The originality of the code stands both in the diversity of the mechanisms and in original formalisms such as non-local equilibrium dissolution of NAPL or biodegradation formalism dedicated to chlorinated solvents. After a short description of the numerical code, test cases will be presented to highlight the capacity of the code to model many situations that might be accoutered when dealing with contaminated sites (prediction of an accidental spill, temporal evolution of a source zone and its impact on aquifers, assessment of biodegradation…)