The process of drainage of soil water is customarily treated as a fully saturated flow phenomenon. Recent work of several cooperating scientists is reported to illustrate that the partially saturated zone can significantly influence the overall performance of agricultural drains, particularly with respect to maintenance of a desirable root environment...
The study of water movement in unsaturated soils by using appropriate
diffusion equations has attracted considerable attention in
recent years.
In this study, a numerical technique is developed for solving
a generalized, dimensionless diffusion equation by the use of a digital.
computer. Diffusivity and capillary conductivity equations derived
by Brooks...
The design of a fabric composite heat pipe has been completed. It is
composed of two end caps, between which a fluid containment liner composed of
metal foil and an outer structural layer composed of a ceramic fabric is stretched.
The interior of the heat pipe is layered with a...
This thesis covers two topics. The first subject
involves tests run on a ultralite reflux tube supplied by
Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories (PNL). The second
topic involves tests to determine the relative wicking rates
of several different fabrics.
The ultralite reflux tube supplied by PNL was
constructed of copper and...
Geological carbon sequestration, as a method of atmospheric greenhouse gas reduction, is at the technological forefront of the climate change movement. During sequestration, carbon dioxide (CO₂) gas effluent is captured from coal fired power plants and is injected into a storage saline aquifer or depleted oil reservoir. In an effort...
Engineered capillary barriers typically consist of two layers of granular materials designed so that the contrast in sediment hydrologic properties and sloping interface retains infiltrating water in the upper layer. We report here on the results of two bench-top capillary barrier experiments, and associated modeling. These experiments were conducted to...
Recent advances in imaging technology and numerical modeling have greatly enhanced pore-scale investigations of multiphase flow and transport in porous media. It is now feasible to obtain high resolution 3-dimensional pore-scale data, and numerical methods such as the lattice-
Boltzmann (LB) technique have been developed specifically for simulating such phenomena....