A boundary element method for analysis of contaminant transport in porous media I: Homogeneous porous media

A boundary element method is developed for the analysis of contaminant migr ation in porous media. The technique involves, firstly, taking the Laplace transform with respect to time then followed by a co-ordinate transform and a mathematical transform of the well-known advection-dispersion equation. The series of transforms reduce the equation into the modified Helmholz equ ation and this greatly facilitates the formulation of the boundary integral equation and a system of approximating algebraic boundary element equation s. The algebraic equations are solved simultaneously in the transform space before being inverted numerically to obtain the concentration of the conta minant in real time and space. The application of this technique is demonst rated by some illustrative examples. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.