Engineering Commons^™

Bacterial Chemotaxis In Porous Media: Theory Derivation And Comparison With Experiments, Francisco J. Valdes-Parada, Mark L. Porter, Brian D. Wood

Francisco J. Valdes-Parada

Chemotaxis is the movement of organisms toward or away from the concentration gradient of a chemical species. Microbial chemotaxis has been shown to significantly increase contaminant degradation in subsurface environments with respect to traditional methods such as pump-and-treat. This type of transport phenomena often involves diffusion and convection along several scales. In this work we use the method of volume averaging to upscale the governing equations for in situ bioremediation by bacterial chemotaxis. The results are effective medium mass balance equations for both the bacteria and the chemical attractant. These equations are expressed in terms of average transport coefficients, which …

Interpretation Of Closure Variables In Upscaling, Francisco J. Valdes-Parada, Mark L. Porter, Brian D. Wood

Francisco J. Valdes-Parada

In many engineering applications, it is common to nd systems that involve transport at several scales. Despite the increasing computational capabilities, it is still not feasible to model a complete macroscopic system by direct numerical simulations at the microscale. Actually, it is more convenient to derive models at an intermediate level of scale between the microscale and the macroscale; this is the average scale. The derivation of models at this scale can be carried out by means of the method of volume averaging. The results from this method are averaged transport equations expressed in terms of eective medium coecients that …

Escalamiento De Dispersión De Contaminantes En La Ciudad De México, Francisco J. Valdes-Parada, J. Ruben Varela-Ham

Francisco J. Valdes-Parada

En días hábiles, la actividad vehicular más intensa en calles y avenidas de la ciudad de México se inicia a las 6:00 hs y se prolonga por aproximadamente 3 ó 4 horas. En ese periodo, la capa de mezclado permanece relativamente quieta y expuesta a recibir una carga importante de contaminantes producto de emisiones vehiculares. En esas condiciones de ausencia de movimientos atmosféricos verticales y horizontales, y de intensa actividad contaminante, adquieren importancia los procesos de dispersión que ocurren en la horizontal y a nivel del suelo.

En este trabajo se lleva a cabo un proceso de promediado de las …

Integral Formulation For The Solution Of Closure Problems In Upscaling Processes, Francisco J. Valdes-Parada

Francisco J. Valdes-Parada

The derivation of transport models at macroscopic scales can be carried out using upscaling techniques such as the method of volume averaging. This upscaling technique consists on averaging the transport equations that describe phenomena at the microscale. The result is the so-called eective medium models, which are expressed in terms of eective coecients that can be computed from the solution of the corresponding closure problems. In this work, we present an integral formulation based on Green's functions to carry out the formal solution of closure problems. This methodology not only provides a physical interpretation of the closure variables, but it …