Effective Rheology of Two-phase Flow in Three-Dimensional Porous Media: Experiment and Simulation

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 (\(\Delta P\)) in the steady state. We show that in the regime where capillary forces com...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-12
Main Authors: Sinha, Santanu, Bender, Andrew T, Danczyk, Matthew, Keepseagle, Kayla, Prather, Cody A, Bray, Joshua M, Thrane, Linn W, Seymour, Joseph D, Codd, Sarah L, Hansen, Alex
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beads
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
Flow velocity
Fluids
Mathematical models
Porous materials
Porous media
Pressure drop
Rheological properties
Rheology
Stress concentration
Three dimensional flow
Two phase flow
Wetting
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Summary: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 (\(\Delta P\)) 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 pressure drop (\(\Delta P-P_t\)). While increasing the flow-rate, there is a transition, beyond which the flow is Newtonian and the relationship is linear. In our experiments, we build a model porous medium using a column of glass beads transporting two fluids -- de-ionized water and air. For the numerical study, reconstructed 3D pore-networks from real core samples are considered and the transport of wetting and non-wetting fluids through the network are modeled by tracking the fluid interfaces with time. We find agreement between our numerical and experimental results. Our results match the mean-field results reported earlier.
ISSN:2331-8422