AIR SPARGING EXPERIMET

Spring '96 CM/GE497:  Dr. Gierke

Page 10 ~ Last Update:  7/29/97

Equipment Used: subsurface remediation tank (radially symmetric to study well hydraulics),
air blower, injection well, and extraction manifold

  These pictures are demonstrating how a tank is filled in the Subsurface Remediation Laboratory.  This tank was filled with coarse sand which was glacial outwash from Superior Gravel in Hancock for this particular experiment.  A similar method to this will be used to fill the mesoscale subsurface remediation vessel, including the rolling and compacting of the sand.  

  Once the sand is in the tank, it must be shoveled and flattened down as much as possible. This is done by rolling it as so:  

  This is a picture of the sparge and it shows what the screen at the bottom looks like.  This is made of 1/2" pvc and the bottom 6" are screen, as displayed in the picture.  A hole is dug with a posthole digger and then the sparge is placed in the hole and then backfill as depicted here:  

  The photo to the left has students taking a level measurement for the experiment.  The photo on the right has students taking another measurement from the sitegage on the side of the tank.  

  This picture exhibits the completed sparge along with the air coming from the blower.  Inverted buckets are used to measure the air flux rates from various distances from the sparge.  This experiment only utilized the subsurface remediation tank, but this circular 'well' can be placed inside the mesoscale subsurface remediation vessel to study the effects of having a well in a square area.


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