Groundwater flow and heat transport for systems undergoing freeze-thaw : Intercomparison of numerical simulators for 2D test cases

In high-elevation, boreal and arctic regions, hydrological processes and associated water bodies can be strongly influenced by the distribution of permafrost. Recent field and modeling studies indicate that a fully-coupled multidimensional thermo-hydraulic approach is required to accurately model th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in Water Resources
Main Authors: Grenier, Christophe, Anbergen, Hauke, Bense, Victor, Chanzy, Quentin, Coon, Ethan, Collier, Nathaniel, Costard, François, Ferry, Michel, Frampton, Andrew, Frederick, Jennifer, Gonçalvès, Julio, Holmén, Johann, Jost, Anne, Kokh, Samuel, Kurylyk, Barret, McKenzie, Jeffrey, Molson, John, Mouche, Emmanuel, Orgogozo, Laurent, Pannetier, Romain, Rivière, Agnès, Roux, Nicolas, Rühaak, Wolfram, Scheidegger, Johanna, Selroos, Jan Olof, Therrien, René, Vidstrand, Patrik, Voss, Clifford
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Code benchmarking
Numerical simulation
Permafrost
Sharp interface problems
Thermo-hydrological coupling
Arctic
permafrost
Online Access:https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/groundwater-flow-and-heat-transport-for-systems-undergoing-freeze
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2018.02.001
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Summary:In high-elevation, boreal and arctic regions, hydrological processes and associated water bodies can be strongly influenced by the distribution of permafrost. Recent field and modeling studies indicate that a fully-coupled multidimensional thermo-hydraulic approach is required to accurately model the evolution of these permafrost-impacted landscapes and groundwater systems. However, the relatively new and complex numerical codes being developed for coupled non-linear freeze-thaw systems require verification. This issue is addressed by means of an intercomparison of thirteen numerical codes for two-dimensional test cases with several performance metrics (PMs). These codes comprise a wide range of numerical approaches, spatial and temporal discretization strategies, and computational efficiencies. Results suggest that the codes provide robust results for the test cases considered and that minor discrepancies are explained by computational precision. However, larger discrepancies are observed for some PMs resulting from differences in the governing equations, discretization issues, or in the freezing curve used by some codes.

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