Experimental determination of transverse dispersivity in a helix and a cochlea

In porous media, transverse dispersion plays a decisive role in the dilution of conservative solutes, the decay of concentration fluctuations, and the mixing of reactive solutes. One possible approach for measuring the transverse dispersivity of homogeneous isotropic porous media is based on the principle of Taylor‐Aris dispersion, where the longitudinal macrodispersion coefficient is inversely proportional to the pore‐scale transverse dispersion coefficient. Taylor‐Aris dispersion requires a shear flow situation. To achieve the latter in porous media, we use a helix, as previously proposed, and also a cochlea, which is spiral‐shaped cavity resembling the interior a nautilus shell. We obtain experimental breakthrough curves from conservative tracer experiments and compare them to results of numerical simulation. By fitting the model we obtain the values of transverse dispersivity in various tracer tests. In our experiments we investigate porous media with relatively uniform particle distributions. Estimates of the transverse dispersivity are obtained for each experiment, and the relative advantages of each device are discussed. The two devices yield similar results. The estimated ratio of transverse dispersivity to longitudinal dispersivity agrees with the higher ratios reported in the literature.

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