Inclusion of some aspects of chemical behaviour of unsaturated soil in thermo/hydro/chemical/mechanical models. II: Application and transport of soluble salts in compacted bentonite

This paper presents an application of a coupled thermo/hydro/chemical/mechanical model via simulation of a laboratory experiment in order to investigate the transport behavior of ions in bentonite pore water. Chemical reactions considered include ion exchange reactions involving major cations �Na+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+� and precipitation-dissolution of trace minerals �calcite, dolomite, anhydrite, and halite�. The following conclusions are drawn based on the numerical results. The development of both the temperature and moisture fields was captured by simulation, and a good correlation with the experimental water uptake results was observed. For all ions, the model showed a good qualitative and reasonable quantitative agreement with the experimental results