Modelling of Water Flow and Solute Transport in Double Porosity Unsaturated Media: Theory, Two-scale Computations and Experiments

“Multi-scale, multi-components, multi-phases” are the key words that characterize the double porosity media, like fissured rocks, aggregated soils or composite geomaterials, subject to environmental conditions. In relation to this context an integrated upscaling approach to the modelling of water flow and solute transport under unsaturated conditions in double porosity media, is presented. The proposed approach combines three issues: theoretical, numerical and experimental, and enables to relate the macroscopic behaviour to the microscopic features, like microphysics and microstructure.