The Milwaukee Column: A Simple Column Apparatus for Teaching Groundwater Flow and Contaminant Transport
Mentor 1
Charles Paradis
Start Date
10-5-2022 10:00 AM
Description
Hydrogeology teaching labs often utilize equipment and supplies that can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to demonstrate the fundamentals of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. In an effort to make teaching hydrogeology more accessible, our goal was to design a simplified, affordable, and effective column apparatus that helps visualize groundwater flow and contaminant transport. With a budget of no more than $100, our apparatus utilizes two Mariotte bottles to supply a steady-state influent of water with two added solute tracers (green food coloring and chloride) into a translucent column filled with fine gravel. Effluent samples are easily collected by hand and visually analyzed to create a dye-tracer breakthrough curve; the chloride-tracer breakthrough curve is optional for labs already equipped with a bench-top ion-specific electrode and a multi-meter. The calculated mean arrival time of the tracer(s) can be compared to the estimated mean arrival time as predicted by Darcy’s law from volumetric flow rate, cross-sectional area, and porosity. A ready-to-use version of The Milwaukee Column is available, but new ideas and improvements may be adapted in the future.
The Milwaukee Column: A Simple Column Apparatus for Teaching Groundwater Flow and Contaminant Transport
Hydrogeology teaching labs often utilize equipment and supplies that can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to demonstrate the fundamentals of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. In an effort to make teaching hydrogeology more accessible, our goal was to design a simplified, affordable, and effective column apparatus that helps visualize groundwater flow and contaminant transport. With a budget of no more than $100, our apparatus utilizes two Mariotte bottles to supply a steady-state influent of water with two added solute tracers (green food coloring and chloride) into a translucent column filled with fine gravel. Effluent samples are easily collected by hand and visually analyzed to create a dye-tracer breakthrough curve; the chloride-tracer breakthrough curve is optional for labs already equipped with a bench-top ion-specific electrode and a multi-meter. The calculated mean arrival time of the tracer(s) can be compared to the estimated mean arrival time as predicted by Darcy’s law from volumetric flow rate, cross-sectional area, and porosity. A ready-to-use version of The Milwaukee Column is available, but new ideas and improvements may be adapted in the future.
