It is possible to formulate immiscible and incompressible two-phase flow in porous media in a mathematical framework resembling thermodynamics based on the Jaynes generalization of statistical mechanics. We review this approach and discuss the meaning of the emergent variables that appear, agiture, flow derivative and flow pressure, which are conjugate to the configurational entropy, the saturation and the porosity respectively. We conjecture that the agiture, the temperature-like variable, is directly related to the pressure gradient. This has as a consequence that the configurational entropy, a measure of how the fluids are distributed within the porous media and the accompanying velocity field, and the differential mobility of the fluids are related. We also develop elements of another version of the thermodynamics-like formalism where fractional flow rather than saturation is the control variable, since this is typically the natural control variable in experiments.
We demonstrate through numerical simulations and a mean field calculation that immiscible two-phase flow in a porous medium behaves effectively as a Bingham viscoplastic fluid. This leads to a generalized Darcy equation where the volumetric flow rate depends quadratically on an excess pressure difference in the range of flow rates where the capillary forces compete with the viscous forces. At higher rates, the flow is Newtonian.
Based on non-equilibrium thermodynamics we derive a set of general equations relating the partial volumetric flow rates to each other and to the total volumetric flow rate in immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. These equations together with the conservation of saturation reduces the immiscible two-phase flow problem to a single-phase flow problem of a complex fluid. We discuss the new equation in terms of the relative permeability equations. We test the equations on model systems, both analytically and numerically.
We present a theoretical framework for immiscible incompressible two-phase flow in homogeneous porous media that connects the distribution of local fluid velocities to the average seepage velocities. By dividing the pore area along a cross-section transversal to the average flow direction up into differential areas associated with the local flow velocities, we construct a distribution function that allows us not only to re-establish existing relationships between the seepage velocities of the immiscible fluids, but also to find new relations between their higher moments. We support and demonst…
We construct an ensemble distribution to describe steady immiscible two-phase flow of two incompressible fluids in a porous medium. The system is found to be ergodic. The distribution is used to compute macroscopic flow parameters. In particular, we find an expression for the overall mobility of the system from the ensemble distribution. The entropy production at the scale of the porous medium is shown to give the expected product of the average flow and its driving force, obtained from a black-box description. We test numerically some of the central theoretical results.
Based on thermodynamic considerations we derive a set of equations relating the seepage velocities of the fluid components in immiscible and incompressible two-phase flow in porous media. They necessitate the introduction of a new velocity function, the co-moving velocity. This velocity function is a characteristic of the porous medium. Together with a constitutive relation between the velocities and the driving forces, such as the pressure gradient, these equations form a closed set. We solve four versions of the capillary tube model analytically using this theory. We test the theory numerica…
We present a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm based on the Metropolis algorithm for simulation of the flow of two immiscible fluids in a porous medium under macroscopic steady-state conditions using a dynamical pore network model that tracks the motion of the fluid interfaces. The Monte Carlo algorithm is based on the configuration probability, where a configuration is defined by the positions of all fluid interfaces. We show that the configuration probability is proportional to the inverse of the flow rate. Using a two-dimensional network, advancing the interfaces using time integration the…
A fundamental variable characterizing immiscible two-phase flow in porous media is the wetting saturation, which is the ratio between the pore volume filled with wetting fluid and the total pore volume. More generally, this variable comes from a specific choice of coordinates on some underlying space, the domain of variables that can be used to express the volumetric flow rate. The underlying mathematical structure allows for the introduction of other variables containing the same information, but which are more convenient from a theoretical point of view. We introduce along these lines polar …
When two immiscible liquids that coexist inside a porous medium are drained through an opening, a complex flow takes place in which the interface between the liquids moves, tilts and bends. The interface profiles depend on the physical properties of the liquids and on the velocity at which they are extracted. If the drainage flow rate, the liquids volume fraction in the drainage flow and the physical properties of the liquids are known, the interface angle in the immediate vicinity of the outlet (theta) can be determined. In this work, we define four nondimensional parameters that rule the flu…
We present a continuum (i.e., an effective) description of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media characterized by two fields, the pressure and the saturation. Gradients in these two fields are the driving forces that move the immiscible fluids around. The fluids are characterized by two seepage velocity fields, one for each fluid. Following Hansen et al.\ (Transport in Porous Media, 125, 565 (2018)), we construct a two-way transformation between the velocity couple consisting of the seepage velocity of each fluid, to a velocity couple consisting of the average seepage velocity of both flui…
We present in detail a set of algorithms to carry out fluid displacements in a dynamic pore-network model of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. The algorithms are general and applicable to regular and irregular pore networks in two and three dimensions with different boundary conditions. Implementing these sets of algorithms, we describe a dynamic pore-network model and reproduce some of the fundamental properties of both the transient and steady-state two-phase flow. During drainage displacements, we show that the model can reproduce the flow patterns corresponding to viscous fingerin…
Immiscible fluid displacement in porous media is fundamental for many environmental processes, including infiltration of water in soils, groundwater remediation, enhanced recovery of hydrocarbons and carbon geosequestration. Microstructural heterogeneity, in particular of particle sizes, can significantly impact immiscible displacement. For instance, it may lead to unstable flow and preferential displacement patterns. We present a systematic, quantitative pore-scale study of the impact of spatial correlations in particle sizes on the drainage of a partially-wetting fluid. We perform pore-netwo…
We construct a statistical mechanics for immiscible and incompressible two-phase flow in porous media under local steady-state conditions based on the Jaynes maximum entropy principle. A cluster entropy is assigned to our lack of knowledge of, and control over, the fluid and flow configurations in the pore space. As a consequence, two new variables describing the flow emerge: The agiture, that describes the level of agitation of the two fluids, and the flow derivative which is conjugate to the saturation. Agiture and flow derivative are the analogs of temperature and chemical potential in stan…
Colloidal particles hold promise for mobilizing and removing trapped immiscible fluids from porous media, with implications for key energy and water applications. Most studies focus on accomplishing this goal using particles that can localize at the immiscible fluid interface. Therefore, researchers typically seek to optimize the surface activity of particles, as well as their ability to freely move through a pore space with minimal deposition onto the surrounding solid matrix. Here, we demonstrate that deposition can, surprisingly, promote mobilization of a trapped fluid from a porous medium …
Immiscible fluid displacement in porous media occurs in several natural and industrial processes. For example, during petroleum extraction from porous rock reservoirs, water is used to displace oil. In this paper, we investigate primary drainage and imbibition in a heterogeneous porous medium using an improved numerical model based on the multicomponent pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann method. We apply recent developments from the literature and develop new pressure boundary conditions. We show that the proposed model is able to simulate realistic viscosity ratios, and it allows independent t…
Immiscible two-phase flow in porous media with mixed wet conditions was examined using a capillary fiber bundle model, which is analytically solvable, and a dynamic pore network model. The mixed wettability was implemented in the models by allowing each tube or link to have a different wetting angle chosen randomly from a given distribution. Both models showed that mixed wettability can have significant influence on the rheology in terms of the dependence of the global volumetric flow rate on the global pressure drop. In the capillary fiber bundle model, for small pressure drops when only a sm…
The change in contact angles due to the injection of low salinity water or any other wettability altering agent in an oil-rich porous medium is modeled by a network model of disordered pores transporting two immiscible fluids. We introduce a dynamic wettability altering mechanism, where the time dependent wetting property of each pore is determined by the cumulative flow of water through it. Simulations are performed to reach steady-state for different possible alterations in the wetting angle ($θ$). We find that deviation from oil-wet conditions re-mobilizes the stuck clusters and increases t…
The linearized Navier-Stokes equations for a system of superposed immiscible compressible ideal fluids are analyzed. The results of the analysis reconcile the stabilizing and destabilizing effects of compressibility reported in the literature. It is shown that the growth rate $n$ obtained for an inviscid, compressible flow in an infinite domain is bounded by the growth rates obtained for the corresponding incompressible flows with uniform and exponentially varying density. As the equilibrium pressure at the interface $p_\infty$ increases (less compressible flow), $n$ increases towards the unif…
The Saffman-Taylor instability occurs when { a} Stokes fluid is displaced by a less viscous one { in} a Hele-Shaw cell. { This model is useful to study the secondary oil recovery from a pororus medum.} Since 1960, { polymer solutions} were used as displacing fluids; moreover, the oil in a porous reservoir can often be considered a non-Newtonian fluid. Motivated by this fact, in this paper we study the linear stability of the displacement of two Oldroyd-B fluids in a rectilinear Hele-Shaw cell, even if the direct relevance for the flow through porous media is not so evident. We get an { approxi…
This document is a presentation of the equations of simultaneous water and oil flow in deformable porous medium and linear poromechanics as well as the staggered solution algorithm to solve the coupled system of equations.
Using thermodynamic and variational principles we examine a basic phase field model for a mixture of two incompressible fluids in strongly perforated domains. With the help of the multiple scale method with drift and our recently introduced splitting strategy for Ginzburg-Landau/Cahn-Hilliard-type equations [Schmuck et al., Proc. R. Soc. A 468:3705-3724, 2012.], we rigorously derive an effective macroscopic phase field formulation under the assumption of periodic flow and a sufficiently large Péclet number. As for classical convection-diffusion problems, we obtain systematically diffusion-disp…
Immiscible fluids flowing at high capillary numbers in porous media may be characterized by an effective viscosity. We demonstrate that the effective viscosity is well described by the Lichtenecker-Rother equation. The exponent $α$ in this equation takes either the value 1 or 0.6 in two- and 0.5 in three-dimensional systems depending on the pore geometry. Our arguments are based on analytical and numerical methods.
We compute the fluid flow time-correlation functions of incompressible, immiscible two-phase flow in porous media using a 2D network model. Given a properly chosen representative elementary volume, the flow rate distributions are Gaussian and the integrals of time correlation functions of the flows are found to converge to a finite value. The integrated cross-correlations become symmetric, obeying Onsager's reciprocal relations. These findings support the proposal of a non-equilibrium thermodynamic description for two-phase flow in porous media.
We present a numerical scheme for immiscible two-phase flows with one compressible and one incompressible phase. Special emphasis lies in the discussion of the coupling strategy for compressible and incompressible Euler equations to simulate inviscid liquid-vapour flows. To reduce the computational effort further, we also introduce two approximate coupling strategies. The resulting schemes are compared numerically to a fully compressible scheme and show good agreement with these standard algorithm at lower numerical costs.
We study the displacement of three immiscible Stokes fluids with constant viscosities in a porous medium. The middle-layer fluid is contained in a bounded region. We give an analysis of the linear stability of this process. This stability problem has no solution (in general).
Multiphase flow in porous media occurs in several disciplines including petroleum reservoir engineering, petroleum systems' analysis, and CO$_2$ sequestration. While simulations often use a fully implicit discretization to increase the time step size, restrictions on the time step often exist due to non-convergence of the nonlinear solver (e.g. Newton's method). Here this problem is addressed for the Buckley-Leverett equations, which model incompressible, immiscible, two-phase flow with no capillary potential. The equations are recast as a gradient flow using the phase-field method, and a conv…
In order to generate the valid numerical simulation model, the sufficient amount of gathered data from the oil field is required. However, it is not always possible to acquire such data at the initial stage of project development. Buckley and Leverett (1942) developed the analytical solution allowing to assess the oil displacement efficiency. One of the main assumptions of this model is incompressibility of oil and injected fluid. For slightly compressible water and oil such assumption is rational. However, that is not always the case when the gas is injected. This research aims to identify th…
We present the visual analysis of our novel parameter study of porous media experiments, focusing on gaining a better understanding of drainage processes on the micro-scale. We analyze the temporal evolution of extracted characteristic values, and discuss how to directly compare experiments that exhibit processes at different temporal scales due to varying boundary and physical conditions. To enable spatio-temporal analysis, we introduce a new abstract visual representation showing which paths through the porous media were occupied to what extent, e.g., allowing for classification into viscous…
In this work, we extend the discrete unified gas-kinetic scheme (DUGKS) [Guo et al., Phys. Rev. E 88, 033305 (2013)] to continue two-phase flows. In the framework of DUGKS, two kinetic model equations are used to solve the quasi-incompressible phase-field governing equations [Yang et al., Phys. Rev.E 93, 043303 (2016)]. One is for the Chan-Hilliard (CH) equation and the other is for the Navier-Stokes equations. The DUGKS can correctly recover the quasi-incompressible phase-field governing equations through the Chapman-Enskog analysis. Unlike previous phase-field-based LB models, the Courant-Fr…
Permeability estimation of porous media from direct solving Navier--Stokes equation has a wide spectrum of applications in petroleum industry. In this paper, we utilize a pressure-correction projection algorithm in conjunction with the interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin scheme for space discretization to build an incompressible Navier--Stokes simulator and to use this simulator to calculate permeability of real rock sample. The proposed method is accurate, numerically robust, and exhibits the potential for tackling realistic problems.
We derive the entropy production for transport of multi-phase fluids in a non-deformable, porous medium exposed to differences in pressure, temperature, and chemical potentials. Thermodynamic extensive variables on the macro-scale are obtained by integrating over a representative elementary volume (REV). Using Euler homogeneity of the first order, we obtain the Gibbs equation for the REV. From this we define the intensive variables, the temperature, pressure and chemical potentials and, using the balance equations, derive the entropy production for the REV. The entropy production defines sets …
In this paper, a multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann (LB) model is developed for simulating incompressible axisymmetric thermal flows in porous media at the representative elementary volume (REV) scale. In the model, a D2Q9 MRT-LB equation is proposed to solve the flow field in addition to the D2Q5 LB equation for the temperature field. The source terms of the model are simple and contain no velocity and temperature gradient terms. The generalized axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations for axisymmetric flows in porous media are correctly recovered from the MRT-LB model through the C…
The paper deals with the global Kondaurov double porosity model describing a non-equilibrium two-phase immiscible flow in fractured-porous reservoirs when non-equilibrium phenomena occur in the matrix blocks, only. It is shown that the homogenized model can be represented as usual equations of two-phase incompressible immiscible flow, except for the addition of two source terms calculated by a solution to a local problem which is a boundary value problem for a non-equilibrium imbibition equation given in terms of the real saturation and a non-equilibrium parameter.
We initiate the study of stability of solutions of the 2D inviscid incompressible porous medium equation (IPM). We begin by classifying all stationary solutions of the inviscid IPM under mild conditions. We then prove some linear stability results. We then study solutions of the IPM equation which are sufficiently regular perturbations of linearly stable steady states. We prove that sufficiently regular perturbations which are also small must be globally regular and strongly converge to a steady state. The mechanism behind the stability is \emph{stratification} as opposed to previous stability…
The flow of immiscible fluids inside a porous medium shows non-linearity in the form of a power law in the rheological properties of the fluids under steady state flow conditions. However, different experimental and numerical studies have reported different values for the exponent related to this power law. Here we explore how the rheological properties of the two-phase flow in porous media depends on the distribution of the pore sizes and how it affects the power-law exponent. The pore-size distribution controls fluctuation in the pore radii and their density in a porous material. We present …
It is well known that the transient behavior during drainage or imbibition in multiphase flow in porous media strongly depends on the history and initial condition of the system. However, when the steady-state regime is reached and both drainage and imbibition take place at the pore level, the influence of the evolution history and initial preparation is an open question. Here, we present an extensive experimental and numerical work investigating the history dependence of simultaneous steady-state two-phase flow through porous media. Our experimental system consists of a Hele-Shaw cell filled …
We consider the propagation of nonlinear plane waves in porous media within the framework of the Biot-Coussy biphasic mixture theory. The tortuosity effect is included in the model, and both constituents are assumed incompressible (Yeoh-type elastic skeleton, and saturating fluid). In this case, the linear dispersive waves governed by Biot's theory are either of compression or shear-wave type, and nonlinear waves can be classified in a similar way. In the special case of a neo-Hookean skeleton, we derive the explicit expressions for the characteristic wave speeds, leading to the hyperbolicity …
In this paper, a two-dimensional eight-velocity (D2Q8) multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) lattice Boltzmann (LB) model is proposed for incompressible porous flows at the representative elementary volume scale based on the Brinkman-Forchheimer-extended Darcy formulation. In the model, the porosity is included into the pressure-based equilibrium moments, and the linear and nonlinear drag forces of the porous media are incorporated into the model by adding a forcing term to the MRT-LB equation in the moment space. Through the Chapman-Enskog analysis, the generalized Navier-Stokes equations can be rec…
Many parts of biological organisms are comprised of deformable porous media. The biological media is both pliable enough to deform in response to an outside force and can deform by itself using the work of an embedded muscle. For example, the recent work (Ludeman et al., 2014) has demonstrated interesting 'sneezing' dynamics of a freshwater sponge, when the sponge contracts and expands to clear itself from surrounding polluted water. We derive the equations of motion for the dynamics of such an active porous media (i.e., a deformable porous media that is capable of applying a force to itself w…
Velocity relaxation of a spherically symmetric polymer, immersed in a viscous incompressible fluid, and after a sudden small impulse or a sudden twist from a state of rest, is studied on the basis of the linearized Navier-Stokes equations with an added Darcy type drag term. Explicit expressions for the translational and rotational velocity relaxation functions of the polymer and for the flow pattern of the fluid are derived for a uniform permeable sphere. Surprisingly, it is found that the added mass vanishes. For fairly large values of the ratio of sphere radius to the screening length charac…
We present an experimental and numerical study of immiscible two-phase flow in 3-dimensional (3D) porous media to find the relationship between the volumetric flow rate ($Q$) and the total pressure difference ($ΔP$) in the steady state. We show that in the regime where capillary forces compete with the viscous forces, the distribution of capillary barriers at the interfaces effectively creates a yield threshold, making the fluids reminiscent of a Bingham viscoplastic fluid in the porous medium, introducing a threshold pressure $P_t$. In this regime, $Q$ depends quadratically on an excess press…
