Accelerated computational micromechanics for solute transport in porous media

Reactive transport in permeable porous media is relevant for a variety of applications, but poses a significant challenge due to the range of length and time scales. Multiscale methods that aim to link microstructure with the macroscopic response of geo-materials have been developed, but require the repeated solution of the small-scale problem and provide the motivation for this work. We present an efficient computational method to study fluid flow and solute transport problems in periodic porous media. Fluid flow is governed by the Stokes equation, and the solute transport is governed by the advection–diffusion equation. We follow the accelerated computational micromechanics approach that leads to an iterative computational method where each step is either local or the solution of a Poisson’s equation. This enables us to implement these methods on accelerators like graphics processing units (GPUs) and exploit their massively parallel architecture. We verify the approach by comparing the results against established computational methods and then demonstrate the accuracy, efficacy, and performance by studying various examples. This method efficiently calculates the effective transport properties for complex pore geometries.