Accurately tracking and predicting the subsurface migration of specific materials over time and over multiple phases is critical to efficient and effective strategy development and deployment in a growing number of applications. STOMP (Sub surface Transport Over Multiple Phases) is a general-purpose tool that provides multidimensional analysis of subsurface flow and reactive transport phenomena. It was originally designed to support environmental remediation of subsurfaces contaminated with volatile organic compounds and/or radioactive material.

The STOMP tool has provided more effective recovery strategies for petroleum contaminants at the Brooklawn and Scenic sites near Baton Rouge, LA. This simulation investigates pumping strategies for dense, non-aqueous phase liquid recovery at the Brooklawn site.

Scientists and engineers from various disciplines have used STOMP in their subsurface analyses, exploiting its ability to save time and reduce costs by efficiently providing critical information. For example, the simulator’s use is now expanding into the energy field, where scientists are applying it to better understand the performance and environmental impact of geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide and in-situ production of oil shales, among other potential applications. Further, STOMP is one of the few numerical simulators capable of investigating the production of natural gas hydrates from geologic formations.

Developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), STOMP addresses a variety of subsurface environments including non-isothermal conditions, fractured media, multiple-phase systems, non-wetting fluid entrapment, soil freezing conditions, non-aqueous phase liquids, first-order chemical reactions, radioactive decay, solute transport, dense brines, non-equilibrium dissolution, and surfactant-enhanced dissolution and mobilization of organics.

Written in ANSI FORTRAN 77 and currently being converted to Fortran 90, the simulator has been executed on a variety of platforms at national laboratories, government agencies, private companies, and universities. Full optimization of the simulator has been successful on workstations and mainframe computers. The simulator has undergone a rigorous verification procedure against analytical solutions, laboratory-scale experiments, and field-scale demonstrations.

For more information, visit http://stomp.pnnl.gov .