Chris Berryman
'Smart' tracers, aquifer assessment
PhD research student
Address:
GPRG
Kroto Research Institute
North Campus, University of Sheffield
Broad Lane
Sheffield
S3 7HQ
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)114 22 25753
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 5701
Room: G21
email : c.berryman@sheffield.ac.uk
Current research interests
A PhD research student member of the Aquifer Assessment Tool (AAT) project team and co-worker on field scale trials of the AAT, Chris Berryman is currently performing systematic functional testing of a miniaturised, purpose built dipole probe in a laboratory scale model aquifer – the sandbox (pictured). The sandbox test facility has been developed to act a physical model of an unconsolidated, sandy aquifer using sand with similar properties to the lithified Sherwood Sandstone formation in which earlier field trials were conducted.
The sandbox offers a unique and highly instrumented facility, designed to allow for variation of ambient `groundwater´ flows and is densely instrumented with miniature multilevel cluster wells for collection of aqueous samples and the measurement of point aquifer head values using these wells as piezometers. In addition, the sandbox is populated with 700 electrode pairs to allow for rigorous on-line measurements of electrical resistivity using a multi-channel data logger. This extensive multilevel piezometer network and electrode array enables investigation of dipole flow tracer tests and resolution of data which is simply not possible in field investigations.
Sandbox scale tracer tests are producing a suite of breakthrough curves to better understand the spatial extent of the dipole flow field, from a central 50mm slotted well screen, with varied flow rates and dipole dimensions, to build greater confidence in the performance of the AAT to determine aquifer hydraulic properties. Additionally tests using partitioning and degrading tracers will be conducted to demonstrate the potential of the AAT as a novel tool for assessing the physical and chemical hydrogeological properties of an aquifer with reliable and high quality data to support a case for a monitored natural attenuation strategy at real field sites when conducted by eventual end-users.
Modelling of sandbox scale breakthrough curves allow for the AAT numerical model to be further refined as a reliable package for the interpretation of aquifer properties from AAT derived tracer breakthrough curves. With a developed understanding in the performance of the miniature AAT dipole probe from the sandbox, the same miniature probe will be used to gather further field scale data to assess the viability of the AAT in unconsolidated aquifer deposits.
