Comparison of numerical methods for simulating strongly non-linear and heterogeneous reactive transport problems – the MoMaS benchmark case

Jérôme Carrayrou (1) , Joachim Hoffmann (2) , Peter Knabner (2) , Serge Kräutle (2) , Caroline de Dieuleveult (3) , Jocelyne Erhel (4) , Jan van Der Lee (3) , Vincent Lagneau (3) , K. Ulrich Mayer (5) , Kerry T. B. Macquarrie (6)

1 LHyGeS - Laboratoire d'Hydrologie et de Géochimie de Strasbourg
2 Department Mathematik [Erlangen]
3 GEOSCIENCES - Centre de Géosciences
4 SAGE - Simulations and Algorithms on Grids for Environment
5 EOS - Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences [Vancouver]
6 UNB Civil Engineering - Department of Civil Engineering

Although multicomponent reactive transport modeling is gaining wider application in various geoscience fields, it continues to present significant mathematical and computational challenges. There is a need to solve and compare the solutions to complex benchmark problems, using a variety of codes, because such intercomparisons can reveal promising numerical solution approaches and increase confidence in the application of reactive transport codes. In this contribution, the results and performance of five current reactive transport codes are compared for the 1D and 2D sub-problems of the so-called "Easy Test Case" of the MoMaS benchmark (Carrayrou et al., this issue). As a group, the codes include iterative and non-iterative operator splitting, and global implicit solution approaches. The 1D Easy Advective and 1D Easy Diffusive scenarios were solved using all codes and, in general, there was good agreement, with solution discrepancies limited to regions with rapid concentration changes. Computational demands were typically consistent with what was expected for the various solution approaches. The most important outcome of the benchmark exercise is that all codes are able to generate comparable results for problems of significant complexity and computational difficulty.

Mots clés: MoMaS · Benchmark · Code intercomparison · Numerical methods for reactive transport · Direct substitution approach (DSA) · Differential and algebraic equations (DAE) · Sequential iterative approach (SIA) · Sequential noniterative approach (SNIA)

Domaines: Modélisation et simulation

Jérôme Carrayrou, Joachim Hoffmann, Peter Knabner, Serge Kräutle, Caroline de Dieuleveult, et al.. Comparison of numerical methods for simulating strongly non-linear and heterogeneous reactive transport problems – the MoMaS benchmark case. Computational Geosciences, 2010, 14, pp.483-502. ⟨10.1007/s10596-010-9178-2⟩. ⟨hal-00505371⟩