water Article Porous Medium Typology Influence on the Scaling Laws of Confined Aquifer Characteristic Parameters Carmine Fallico , Agostino Lauria * and Francesco Aristodemo Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calabria, via P. Bucci, Cubo 42B, 87036 Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy;
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[email protected] (F.A.) * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +39-(0)9-8449-6568 Received: 4 March 2020; Accepted: 17 April 2020; Published: 19 April 2020 Abstract: An accurate measurement campaign, carried out on a confined porous aquifer, expressly reproduced in laboratory, allowed the determining of hydraulic conductivity values by performing a series of slug tests. This was done for four porous medium configurations with different granulometric compositions. At the scale considered, intermediate between those of the laboratory and the field, the scalar behaviors of the hydraulic conductivity and the effective porosity was verified, determining the respective scaling laws. Moreover, assuming the effective porosity as scale parameter, the scaling laws of the hydraulic conductivity were determined for the different injection volumes of the slug test, determining a new relationship, valid for coarse-grained porous media. The results obtained allow the influence that the differences among the characteristics of the porous media considered exerted on the scaling laws obtained to be highlighted. Finally, a comparison was made with the results obtained in a previous investigation carried out at the field scale. Keywords: hydraulic conductivity; effective porosity; scaling behavior; grain size analysis. 1. Introduction Among the parameters’ characterizing aquifers, certainly the hydraulic conductivity is one of the most meaningful and useful for the description of the flow and mass transport phenomena in porous media.