LABORATORY AND NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF VERTICAL GROUND WATER FLOW AND HEAT TRANSPORT USING DISTRIBUTED TEMPERATURE SENSING

Measurements of heat transport via groundwater flow have become an important tool for hydrogeologists and environmental engineers over the last fifty years. By measuring heat fluxes in the subsurface, groundwater/surface water (GWSW) interaction can be identified and quantified. Being able to identify areas of GWSW interactions are important when working on stream restoration projects that involve tracing pollutants or determining potential sites for habitat creation. In recent years hydrogeologists and environmental engineers have turned to distributed temperature sensing (DTS) to measure GWSW interactions. These systems have been shown to produce high resolution temperature profiles over great distances when applied horizontally along streams. DTS systems have also been used in the field to measure heat transport in the vertical direction by coiling the DTS cable around a rod or pipe. By coiling the cable around the rod the resolution data collected is even further increased, potentially being able to return a measurement every 3 cm. The purpose of this project is to test the vertical DTS technique in a laboratory setting and compare the results from those tests with those produced by a numerical model of groundwater heat transport.