Research

I am a member of the DFG RU 2179 “MAD Soil – Microaggregates: Formation and turnover of the structural building blocks of soils”.
Microaggregates: Formation and turnover of the structural building blocks of soils

PM: Mechanistic Modeling of the Formation and Consolidation of Soil Microaggregates
Funding Agency DFG Research Unit FOR2179
Partner U Jena (Coord.), TU München, FZ Jülich, U Kassel, U Hannover, U Halle, U Bonn
Participants Dr. Nadja Ray (PI), Dr. Alexander Prechtel (PI), Andreas Rupp
Homepage https://www.madsoil.uni-jena.de
Dates 2015 – 2018

Soil functions are decisively related to the structure of soil microaggregates. Thus, the understanding of soil processes and functions also requires a concept of the formation and consolidation of soil structural elements. We develop such a general model framework including the interactions of prototypic building units, as e.g., specific minerals and/or organic matter.

The identified and implemented relevant aggregation processes include electrostatic forces, attraction by gluing and cementing agents, geochemical reactions, or diffusion. They are taken into account in a mechanistic framework using cellular automaton rules and non-linearly coupled systems of partial differential equations with algebraic constraints. The resulting microaggregate structures are investigated quantitatively by morphological analysis that provides comprehensive insights into structural similarities found for aggregates formed under various conditions

With that we heuristically investigate effects of the prototype composition, charge, size ratio, and concentration on microaggregate formation. Moreover, the model permits to illuminate the temporal evolution of aggregate formation in multiple scenarios and therefore provides estimates of soil aggregation behavior in case an observation is inhibited by experimental limitations. The numerical implementation uses advanced discontinuous Galerkin methods and a massively parallel implementation.

2020

2019

2018

2017

2020

2019

2018

2017

Attended Conferences, Workshops, …

  • UT Austin Portugal CoLab Autumn School in Non-Linear Science, October 5 – 9 2015, Lisbon, Portugal
  • Winter School and International Symposium on Modeling, Adaptive Discretizations and Solvers for Fluid-Structure Interaction, January 11 – 15 2016, Linz, Austria
  • Advanced C++ witch Focus on Software Engineering, February 17 – 19 2016, Erlangen, Germany
  • HLRS Parallel Programming Workshop – Parallelization with MPI and OpenMP, March 21 – 23 2016, Mainz, Germany
  • Subsurface Environmental Simulation Benchmarking Workshop V, October 13 – 15 2016, A Coruna, Spain
  • First German National Chapter Meeting of INTERPORE, December 5 – 6 2016, Leipzig, Germany
  • SIAM Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences, September 11 – 14 2017, Erlangen, Germany
  • Workshop on Formation, Properties and Function of Soil Microaggregates, October 10 – 12 2017, Munich, Germany
  • InterPore 10th Annual Meeting and Jubilee, May 14 – 17 2018, New Orleans, USA
  • 16th European Finite Element Fair, June 8 – 9 2018, Heidelberg, Germany
  • GAMM Workshop on Numerical Analysis, October 10 – 12 2018, Augsburg, Germany
  • SIAM Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences, March 11 – 14 2019, Houston, USA

Given Talks

  • “A Discontinuous Galerkin Model of Coupled Surface and Subsurface Flow in a Vertical Two-Dimensional Slice”
    International Symposium on Modeling, Adaptive Discretizations and Solvers for Fluid-Structure Interaction, January 13 – 15 2016, Linz, Austria
  • “Upscaling Reactive Flow and Transport in an Evolving Porous Medium and its Application to Soil Formation” (together with N. Ray)
    August 22 2016, Bergen, Norway
  • “Mechanistic modeling of the formation and consolidation of soil microaggregates”
    RU/FOR 2179 Mad Soil Status Meeting, September 22 2016, Bonn, Germany
  • “A benchmark for microbially mediated chromium reduction under denitrifying conditions in a biostimulation column experiment”
    Subsurface Environmental Simulation Benchmarking Workshop V, October 13 – 15 2016, A Coruna, Spain
  • “Hybrid discrete-continuum continuum multiscale model for transport, biofilm development and soil restructuring in porous media”
    First German National Chapter Meeting of INTERPORE, December 5 – 6 2016, Leipzig, Germany
  • “Mechanistic modeling of the formation and consolidation of soil microaggregates”
    RU/FOR 2179 Mad Soil Status Meeting, June 21 2017, Kassel, Germany
  • “Mechanistic modeling and simulation of the formation and consolidation of soil microaggregates”
    June 29 2017, Stuttgart, Germany
  • “Discrete-continuum multiscale model for transport, biofilm development and solid restructuring in porous media”
    SIAM Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences, September 11 – 14 2017, Erlangen, Germany
  • “Discrete-continuum multiphase/multiscale model for evolving microaggregates in porous media”
    InterPore 10th Annual Meeting and Jubilee, May 14 – 17 2018, New Orleans, USA
  • “A Local Discontinuous Galerkin Scheme for Darcy Flow with Internal Jumps”
    16th European Finite Element Fair, June 8 – 9 2018, Heidelberg, Germany
  • “Varying order local and hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin schemes for Darcy flow with internal jumps”
    GAMM Workshop on Numerical Analysis, October 10 – 12 2018, Augsburg, Germany
  • “Bound-preserving flux-limited DG schemes for conservation equations with applications to Cahn-Hilliard”
    January 17 2019, Heidelberg, Germany
  • “Modeling, Analysis, and Implementation of a Coupled 3D Shallow Water–Darcy/Richards System”
    SIAM Conference on Mathematical and Computational Issues in the Geosciences, March 11 – 14 2019, Houston, USA

Posters

  • “Rigorous Mesoscale Modeling of Reactive Flow and Transport in an Evolving Porous Medium and its Applications in Soil Science” by N. Ray, A. Rupp, P. Knabner