Upgrade of Wind Tunnel/Porous Media Facility to Study Climate Effects on Near Surface Soil Moisture

Colorado School Of Mines, Golden CO

Investigators

Abstract

1029069 Illangasekare This grant supports upgrade of an existing 8 meter long soil tank experimental mesocosm that was originally supported by a previous MRI grant and has subsequently been supported by the Department of Defense to include a low velocity (0-10 m/s) recirculating wind tunnel enclosure that allows for controlled experiments of interactions between the atmosphere and the shallow subsurface (to approximately 2 m depth). Funding will support the addition of environmental temperature (-10 deg C to 35 deg C) and humidity (5-95%) control. The wind tunnel soil-atmosphere exchange mesocosm is already equipped with a 2-d laser velocimetry system to measure velocity profiles, a pressure measuring system, soil moisture and temperature probes and an x-ray attenuation system to measure phase saturations in multiphase systems within the soil column. The upgraded facility would support investigations of water and energy fluxes across the soil-atmosphere interface under non-isothermal conditions and the environmentally controlled impacts on multiphase exchange processes in the shallow subsurface with implications for agricultural water resource management and a deeper understanding of the hydrologic cycle at a range of scales with well known boundary conditions. Data from experiments would inform more accurate and realistic models of coupled soil-atmosphere processes. Specific applications would include study of dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPL), vapor generation and intrusion into underground spaces, soil freeze/thaw dynamics, land surface evaporation, and potential impacts of leakage of geologically sequestered CO2 to the land surface. The wind tunnel mesocosm at Colorado School of Mines is part of a university-industry collaborative research center, the Center for Experimental Study of Subsurface Environmental Processes which brings together multidisciplinary group of researchers at different departments at CSM, other Colorado universities, industry partners and US and foreign collaborators. The facility would support researchers and their students at CSM and beyond among the disciplines of subsurface hydrology, environmental sciences and engineering and geological, geotechnical and petroleum engineering. ***