• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.266-269
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• 2000

To understand the gaseous behaviour of volatile organic compounds in the unsaturated zone, their volatilization coefficient k$_{Lg}$ is evaluated. An experiment is conducted to examine the dependence of k$_{Lg}$ on the concentration of the dissolution, presence of unsaturated zone and depth of the unsaturated zone. The results show that the volatilization coefficient is not dependent on the concentration under the constant temperature and pressure. It is also find that k$_{Lg}$ depends on the presence of the unsaturated zone rather than its depth.depth.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.562-567
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• 2010

A One-Dimensional Water Flow and Contaminant Transport in Unsaturated Zone (FTUNS) code has been developed in order to interpret radionuclide migration in an unsaturated zone. The pore-size distribution index (n) and the inverse of the air-entry value ($\alpha$) for an unsaturated zone were measured by KS M ISO 11275 method. The hydraulic parameters of the unsaturated soil are investigated by using soil from around a nuclear facility in Korea. The effect of hydraulic parameters on radionuclide migration in an unsaturated zone has been analyzed. The higher the value of the n-factor, the more the cobalt concentration was condensed. The larger the value of $\alpha$-factor, the faster the migration of cobalt was and the more aggregative the cobalt concentration was. Also, it was found that an effect on contaminant migration due to the pore-size distribution index (n) and the inverse of the air-entry value ($\alpha$) was minute. Meanwhile, migrations of cobalt and cesium are in inverse proportion to the Freundich isotherm coefficient. That is to say, the migration velocity of cobalt was about 8.35 times that of cesium. It was conclusively demonstrated that the Freundich isotherm coefficient was the most important factor for contaminant migration.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.87-99
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• 2016

We present the results of two-dimensional numerical simulations predicting the flow of groundwater in a fractured unsaturated zone. We applied the k-field distribution of permeability derived from discrete fracture network (DFN) modeling as the hydraulic properties of a model domain. To model an unsaturated zone, we set the depth from the ground surface to the underground aquifer. The rate of water infiltration into the unsaturated zone was divided into two parts, an artificial structure surface and unsaturated soil zone. The movement of groundwater through the unsaturated zone was simulated with particular emphasis on contaminant transport. It was clearly observed that the contaminants dissolved in groundwater transported vertically from the ground surface to the saturated zone.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.727-740
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• 2018

The media in the undersaturated zone is defined as the uppermost layer of the water table at which the groundwater is unsaturated or saturated discontinuously. The properties of the unsaturated zone can affect the reduction of contaminants that flow from the lower part of soil to the water table. In recent, there have been problems in evaluating groundwater contaminations vulnerability because weighted value for permeability is given, regardless of anisotropy and heterogeneity in the unsaturated media. Geological media have various ranges of permeability. When applying the weighted value, representative of permeability for grain sizes standardized, to construction of contamination vulnerability, it will produce more exaggerated result than the case that considers unsaturated geological properties. In this study, we performed laboratory column tests considering two sets of the unsaturated layers in order to investigate the permeability in anisotropic unsaturated zone with anisotropy. On the basis of the tests, average permeability coefficients were calculated considering the properties of unsaturated media obtained from drill cores in the field. The final contamination vulnerability map constructed shows that the contamination vulnerability map applying the properties of geological media of the unsaturated zone coincides much better with the results measured in the field, compared to the case of contamination vulnerability considering the weighted value in the unsaturated zone.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.17-27
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• 2011

Recently, a physically based model of water-table fluctuation due to precipitation is developed based on aquifer water balance model. In the model, it was assumed that the water infiltration into ground surface is advection dominant and immediately reaches to water-table. The assumption may be suited for the sites where the water-table is shallow and/or the permeability of the unsaturated zone is high. However, there are more cases where the model is not directly applicable due to thick and low permeable unsaturated zone. For the low permeability unsaturated zone, the pattern of water flux passing through unsaturated zone is diffusive as well as advective. In this study, to improve the previously developed water-table fluctuation model, we combined the delayed drainage model, which has long been used in well hydraulics, to the water-table fluctuation model. To test the validity of the development, we apply the developed model to 5 different domestic sites. The model parameters are calibrated based on the groundwater hydrograph and the precipitation time series, and the correlation analyses among the parameters are pursued. The overall analyses on the delineated model parameters indicate that the delayed drainage parameters or delay index used in the developed model are able to reveal drainage information in the unsaturated zones.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.53-63
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• 2010

Pneumatic fracturing is an emerging tool to enhance the remediation efficiency of contaminated unsaturated zones by injecting high pressure air and inducing artificial fracture networks. Pneumatic fracturing is reported to be well suited for the cases where the contaminated unsaturated zone thickness is less than 5 m as many contaminated domestic sites in Korea. Nevertheless, there have been almost no studies carried out on the site-specific efficiency and the optimized design of pneumatic fracturing considering the unsaturated zone characteristics of Korea. In this study, we employ numerical simulations to compare the efficiency of pneumatic fracturing on the aspect of the site remediation and the porosity improvement at several hypothetic unsaturated zones composed of four typical soil types. According to the simulation results, it is found that the zone with fine grains soil such as clay and silt shows better efficiency than the zone composed of coarse grains in terms of air flow and porosity enhancements. The results imply that pneumatic fracturing may improve the efficiency of site reclamation by jointly or independently applied to the many contaminated sites in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.348-351
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• 2005

In this study, solute breakthrough curves through the unsaturated zone were predicted using artificial neural network (ANN) by numerical tests and laboratory experiments. In the numerical tests, applicability of ANN model to prediction of breakthrough curves was evaluated using synthetic data generated by HYDRUS-2D. An appropriate strategy of ANN application and input data form were recommended. The ANN model was validated by laboratory experiments comparing with HYDRUS-2D simulations. The results show that the ANN model can be an effective method for forecasting solute breakthrough curves through the unsaturated zone when hydraulic data are available.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.29-37
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• 2007

A conventional single compartment model cannot simulate reasonably the migration phenomenon of contaminants through unsaturated zone, due to the intrinsic unrealistic assumption of the compartment model that contaminants entering a compartment are immediately and uniformly mixed. Although, a multi-compartments model, in which even physically identical layer is divided into multiple compartments, may be used for explaining the retardation of contaminant mass flux along with increasing number of compartments, its numerical modeling is usually time-consuming and appropriate analytical solutions have not been reported yet. In order to improve the conventional compartment models on contaminant migration through unsaturated zone, a series of analytical solutions for multi-compartments model were derived and a generalized constraint under which the results from multi-compartments model can be simply approximated by single compartment model was proposed. The simplified approximation method was verified by a simple numerical analysis on the constraint under hypothetical conditions. It was also proved that the influent contaminant transfer rate from the bulk unsaturated zone can be generally represented into a time-dependent nominal transfer rate rather than a constant. In addition, the nominal transfer rate turned out to be very sensitive to the contaminant transfer rate between compartments in unsaturated zone, but to be almost insensitive to the transfer rate from contaminated zone. It is expected that the simplified approximation method developed in this study can be used for rapid and reasonable estimation of the migration phenomenon of contaminant through unsaturated zone, instead of time-consuming multi-compartments modeling.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.665-675
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• 2007

In-situ Air Sparging (IAS, AS) is a remediation technique in which organic contaminants are volatilized from saturated zone to unsaturated layer. This study focuses on the removal and interaction of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and $CO_2$, and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) in saturated and unsaturated, and air space zone on the unsaturated soil surface. Soil sparging temperature of hot air has risen to $34.9{\pm}2.7^{\circ}C$ from $23.0{\pm}1.9^{\circ}C$ for 36 days. At the diffusing point, fluid TPH concentrations were reduced to 78.7% of the initial concentration in saturated zone when hot air was sparged. The TPH concentrations were decreased to 66.1% for room temperature air sparging. The amount of VOCs for hot air sparging system, in air space, was approximately 26% larger than constant air sparging system. The amount of $CO_2$ was 4,555 mg (in unsaturated zone) and 4,419 mg (in air space) when hot air was sparged was 3,015 mg (in unsaturated zone) and 3,634 mg (in air space) for room air temperature in the $CO_2$ amount. The removals of VOCs and biodegradable $CO_2$ through the hot air sparging system (modified SVE) were more effective than the room temperature air sparging. The regression equation were $Y=976.4e^{-0.015{\cdot}X}$, $R^2=0.98$ (hot air sparging) and $Y=1055e^{-0.028{\cdot}X}$, $R^2=0.90$ (room temperaure air sparging). Estimated remediation time was approximately 500 days, if final saturated soil TPH concentration was set to 1.2 mg/L application of tail effect.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2000.05a
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• pp.129-132
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• 2000

In this research, we proposed the immobilization zone where the organic contaminant would be fixed, so that ground water could be prevented from the organic contaminants. The surfactant was adsorbed on the soil particles and the organic contaminants were partitioned into the hydrophobic tails of the surfactant in the immobilization zone. Surfactants with different molecular structures-SDDBS (sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid), MADS (monoalkylated disulfonated diphenyl oxide), DADS (dialkylated disulfonated diphenyl oxide) - were used in this study. Up to the present, the research on the immolization simulated the saturated condition. But many site contaminated with organic contaminants and the zones where immobilization would be applied are unsaturated. In this research, in order to investigate the behaviors of surfactants and organic contaminants in unsaturated condition, the unsaturated columns were experimented, and their results were compared with the saturated case.