Exploring the optimal parameters for wave stimulation technology - applications to groundwater remediation

Seismic wave stimulation is emerging as an important technology with the capability of improving efficiency in extracting organic contaminants from aquifers. To understand and predict the behavior of immiscible fluids in a porous medium subject to stress pulsing at a boundary lag significantly behind the progress, a boundary-value problem was formulated to describe pore-pressure pulsing at seismic frequencies that was based on the continuum theory of poroelasticity for an elastic porous medium bearing two immiscible fluids. Numerical investigation was applied by using elasticity parameters and hydraulic data to simulate the stimulation-induced mobilization of trichloroethene (TCE) in water flowing through a compressed sand core. The optimum frequencies of seismic stimulation which enhance higher TCE concentration for 12 soil texture classes can be found. The results of sensitivity analysis indicate that bulk modulus and shear modulus of different soil textures dominate the optimum frequency of seismic stimulation.