Modelling of contaminant movement through fractured or jointed media with parallel fractures

A solution for advective-dispersive contaminant movement through a system of parallel cracks is developed for the case where the mass of contaminant available for transport into the rock is assumed to be finite and, as a consequence, the concentration of contaminant in the source decreases with time. The solution is developed for assumed one-dimensional advective-dispersive transport along the fractures and one-dimensional diffusive transport into the rock matrix perpendicular to the fractures. The analytical technique involves taking the Laplace transform of the governing equations, boundary conditions and initial condition, finding a closed form solution in transform space and then numerically inverting the transform. The numerical inversion can be readily performed on a micro-computer.