Finite-Difference Approximation for Fluid-Flow Simulation and Calculation of Permeability in Porous Media

We introduce a finite-difference method to simulate pore scale steady-state creeping fluid flow in porous media. First, a geometrical approximation is invoked to describe the interstitial space of grid-based images of porous media. Subsequently, a generalized Laplace equation is derived and solved to calculate fluid pressure and velocity distributions in the interstitial space domain. We use a previously validated lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM) as ground truth for modeling comparison purposes. Our method requires on average 17 % of the CPU time used by LBM to calculate permeability in the same pore-scale distributions. After grid refinement, calculations of permeability performed from velocity distributions converge with both methods, and our modeling results differ within 6 % from those yielded by LBM. However, without grid refinement, permeability calculations differ within 20 % from those yielded by LBM for the case of high-porosity rocks and by as much as 100 % in low-porosity and highly tortuous porous media. We confirm that grid refinement is essential to secure reliable results when modeling fluid flow in porous media. Without grid refinement, permeability results obtained with our modeling method are closer to converged results than those yielded by LBM in low-porosity and highly tortuous media. However, the accuracy of the presented model decreases in pores with elongated cross sections.     

Effects of viscous dissipation on a power-law fluid over plate embedded in a porous medium

The present study is devoted to investigate the influences of viscous dissipation on buoyancy induced flow over a horizontal or a vertical flat plate embedded in a non-Newtonian fluid saturated porous medium. The Ostwald-de Waele power-law model is used to characterize the non-Newtonian fluid behavior. Similarity solutions for the transformed governing equations are obtained with prescribed variable surface temperature (PT) or with prescribed variable surface heat flux (PHF) for the horizontal plate case. While, the similarity solutions are obtained with prescribed variable surface heat flux for the vertical plate case. Different similar transformations, for each case, are used. Numerical results for the details of the velocity and temperature profiles are shown on graphs. Nusselt number associated with temperature distributions and excess surface temperature associated with heat flux distributions which are entered in tables have been presented for different values of the power-law index n and the exponent as well as Eckert number.     

Radiation effect on forced convective flow and heat transfer over a porous plate in a porous medium

Heat transfer analysis has been presented for the boundary layer forced convective flow of an incompressible fluid past a plate embedded in a porous medium. The similarity solutions for the problem are obtained and the reduced nonlinear ordinary differential equations are solved numerically. In case of porous plate, fluid velocity increases for increasing values of suction parameter whereas due to injection, fluid velocity is noticed to decrease. The non-dimensional temperature increases with the increasing values of injection parameter. A novel result of this investigation is that the flow separation occurred due to suction/injection may be controlled by increasing the permeability parameter of the medium. The effect of thermal radiation on temperature field is also analyzed.     

Brinkman Flow Past a Stretching Sheet

The problem of steady viscous flow of an incompressible fluid over a flat deformable sheet in a porous medium, when the sheet is stretched in its own plane is revisited. An exact solution is recovered for the two-dimensional case and a totally analytic approximate solution is developed for the axisymmetric case. Stretching rate of two-dimensional case is assumed as double the stretching rate of axisymmetric case. The analytical expressions of residual errors, horizontal, vertical velocity distributions, stream lines, vorticity lines, pressure distributions have been obtained and plotted. The values of skin friction, entrainment velocity, boundary layer thickness, momentum thickness and energy thickness have been tabulated. For the first time, two-dimensional and axisymmetric cases are compared by means of a unified scale.     

Effect of yield stress on the flow of a Casson fluid in a homogeneous porous medium bounded by a circular tube

The effect of yield stress on the flow characteristics of a Casson fluid in a homogeneous porous medium bounded by a circular tube is investigated by employing the Brinkman model to account for the Darcy resistance offered by the porous medium. The non-linear coupled implicit system of differential equations governing the flow is first transformed into suitable integral equations and are solved numerically. Analytical solution is obtained for a Newtonian fluid in the case of constant permeability, and the numerical solution is verified with that of the analytic solution. The effect of yield stress of the fluid and permeability of the porous medium on shear stress and velocity distributions, plug flow radius and flow rate are examined. The minimum pressure gradient required to start the flow is found to be independent of the permeability of the porous medium and is equal to the yield stress of the fluid.     

An investigation of hydraulic fracturing. Part II: two-phase flow model

In the previous work presented in Part I (Theoret. Appl. Fracture Mech. 18, 89–102 (1993)), hydraulic fracture in an infinitely large saturated porous medium is analyzed under an assumption of one-phase flow in the medium. The investigation is extended in this paper to the case of a two phase saturated immiscible flow of oil and water in the porous medium. The medium is initially saturated with oil. Flow in the medium is induced by diffusion of water injected into the fracture. The quasi-static growth of the fracture for a prescribed injection rate is analyzed based on the assumptions that the pressure in the fracture is uniform and that the permeating flow in the medium is unidirectional. The constant fracture toughness criterion for plane strain deformation is employed and the effect of capillary pressure is neglected. Empirical formulas are used for the permeabilities of the oil and water phases. It is seen that the distributions of water saturation and pore pressure in the medium are governed by two nonlinear partial differential equations. Numerical solutions are obtained by a finite difference scheme with iterations. It is found that the injected water is restricted within a layer near the surface of the fracture whose thickness is small compared with the length of the fracture. Thus the flow in the medium is governed essentially by the oil phase. To compare our problem with the corresponding problem of one-phase flow, we find that the difference in crack growth in these two problems is small for the ration of kinematic viscosities of the oil and water phases within the practical range. Hence our study confirms the validity of the one phase flow assumption used in the previous work for prediction of hydraulic fracture growth.     

New exact solutions of Stokes' second problem for an MHD second grade fluid in a porous space

We investigate a problem describing the oscillating flow of an incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) second grade fluid in a porous half space. Exact solutions for sine and cosine oscillations are developed by applying the Laplace transform method. The total obtained solution is a sum of steady and transient solutions. Particular attention is given to the effects of magnetic and porous medium parameters on the velocity. It is shown that previous results for a non-porous medium and hydrodynamic fluid are the limiting cases of the present problem. The results for velocity are plotted and discussed carefully.     

Hydrodynamic and Thermal Fields in a Porous Medium with Injection of Superheated Steam

The plane one-dimensional and radially symmetric problems of injection of superheated steam into a porous medium saturated with gas are considered. Self-similar solutions are constructed on the assumption that in this case four zones are formed in the porous medium, namely, a gas flow zone, superheated and wet steam zones, and a water slug zone formed due to steam condensation. On the basis of the solution obtained, both the effects of the boundary pressure, mass flow rate, and temperature of the injected superheated steam and the effect of the initial state of the porous medium on the propagation of the hydrodynamic and thermal fields in the porous medium are studied.     

Self-similar solutions of the problem of formation of a hydraulic fracture in a porous medium

The problem of hydraulic fracture formation in a porous medium is investigated in the approximation of small fracture opening and inertialess incompressible Newtonian fluid fracture flow when the seepage through the fracture walls into the surrounding reservoir is asymptotically small or large. It is shown that the system of equations describing the propagation of the fracture has self-similar solutions of power-law or exponential form only. A family of self-similar solutions is constructed in order to determine the evolution of the fracture width and length, the fluid velocity in the fracture, and the length of fluid penetration into the porous medium when either the fluid flow rate or the pressure as a power-law or exponential function of time is specified at the fracture entrance. In the case of finite fluid penetration into the soil the system of equations has only a power-law self-similar solution, for example, when the fluid flow rate is specified at the fracture entrance as a quadratic function of time. The solutions of the self-similar equations are found numerically for one of the seepage regimes.     

Flow of Maxwell fluids in porous media

In this paper we analyze the flow of a Maxwell fluid in a rigid porous medium using the method of volume averaging. We first present the local volume averaged momentum equation which contains Darcy-scale elastic effects and undetermined integrals of the spatial deviations of the pressure and velocity. A closure problem is developed in order to determine the spatial deviations and thus obtain a closed form of the momentum equation that contains a time-dependent permeability tensor. To gain some insight into the effects of elasticity on the dynamics of flow in porous media, the entire problem is transformed to the frequency domain through a temporal Fourier transform. This leads to a dynamic generalization of Darcy's law. Analytical results are provided for the case in which the porous medium is modeled as a bundle of capillary tubes, and a scheme is presented to solve the transformed closure problem for a general microstructure.     

Influence of lateral mass flux on mixed convection heat and mass transfer over inclined surfaces in porous media

 The effect of lateral mass flux on mixed convection heat and mass transfer in a saturated porous medium adjacent to an inclined permeable surface is analyzed. A similarity solution is obtained when surface temperature and concentration, free stream velocity and injection/suction velocity of fluid are prescribed as power functions of distance from the leading edge. The cases when the flow and buoyancy forces are in the same and opposite directions are discussed both for aiding and opposing buoyancy effects. The governing parameters are the mixed convection parameter Gr, the Lewis number Le, the buoyancy ratio N, the lateral mass flux parameter f _w, representing the effects of injection or withdrawal of fluid at the wall, and λ which specifies three cases of the inclined plate. The interactive effect of these parameters on heat and mass transfer rates are presented. It is observed that the diffusion ratio (Le) has a more pronounced effect on concentration field than on flow and temperature fields. It is found that the rates of heat and mass transfer increase with suction and decrease with injection of the fluid. Received on 31 August 2000 / Published online: 29 November 2001     

Analysis of power-law self-similar solutions to the problem of hydraulic fracture crack formation

The problem of hydraulic fracture crack propagation in a porous medium is studied in the approximation of small crack opening and the inertialess flow of an incompressible Newtonian hydraulic fracturing fluid inside the crack. A one-parameter family of power-law self-similar solutions is considered in order to determine the crack width evolution, the fluid velocity in the crack, and the seepage depth in the case of high and low seepage rates through the soil when a fluid flow rate is given at the crack inlet.     

Analytic solution for flow of Sisko fluid through a porous medium

This paper presents the analytic solution for flow of a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Sisko fluid through a porous medium. The non-linear flow problem in a porous medium is formulated by introducing the modified Darcy’s law for Sisko fluid to discuss the flow in a porous medium. The analytic solutions are obtained using homotopy analysis method (HAM). The obtained analytic solutions are explicitly expressed by the recurrence relations and can give results for all the appropriate values of material parameters of the examined fluid. Moreover, the well-known solutions for a Newtonian fluid in non-porous and porous medium are the limiting cases of our solutions.     

Analytical Solutions for Solute Transport in a Spherically Symmetric Divergent Flow Field

Exact analytical solutions for an equation describing advection, dispersion, first-order decay, and rate-limited sorption of a solute in a steady, hemispherical or spherically symmetric, divergent flow field are presented for constant concentration and constant flux boundary conditions in a porous medium. The partial differential equation describing transport is a confluent hypergeometric equation that may be solved with variable substitution and Laplace transform, and the solutions are expressed by parabolic cylindrical functions. The novel solutions derived here may be applied to predict concentration distributions in space and time for porous media transport in a spherically symmetric flow field or for the special case where injection is just below a confining layer (hemispherical flow). The analytical solutions can be used to simulate wastewater injection from short-screened wells into thick formations or to analyze tracer tests that use short-screened wells to create approximately spherical flow fields in thick formations.     

关于渗流中流线不封闭的特性和条件

本文对于流体在多孔介质中流动的特性进行理论研究和数值计算，提出两个关于渗流中流线不封闭的特性和条件，得到了在一般工程实际情况中的多孔介质区域内部不存在封闭流线的结论。本文以突变截面圆管中不可压缩渗流为算例，利用半人工瞬变方法进行数值计算，得到流体在充满多孔介质的突扩截面圆管和突缩截面圆管中流动时关于速度分布和压力分布的结果。由此表明，在突变截面附近的渗流区域中不存在回流和分离流，也不存在封闭的流线。渗流的这些流动特性不同于在无多孔介质的空间区域中的流动特性。     

Heat and mass transfer by natural convection at a stagnation point in a porous medium considering Soret and Dufour effects

Dufour and Soret effects on flow at a stagnation point in a fluid-saturated porous medium are studied in this paper. A two dimensional stagnation-point flow with suction/injection of a Darcian fluid is considered. By using an appropriate similarity transformation, the boundary layer equations of momentum, energy and concentration are reduced to a set of ordinary differential equations, which are solved numerically using the Keller-box method, which is a very efficient finite differences technique. Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are obtained, together with the velocity, temperature and concentration profiles in the boundary layer. For the large suction case, asymptotic analytical solutions of the problem are obtained, which compare favourably with the numerical solutions. A critical view of the problem is presented finally.     

Laminar flow through a channel with uniformly porous walls of different permeability

Summary The steady laminar flow of a viscous incompressible fluid through a two-dimensional channel, having fluid sucked or injected with different velocities through its uniformly porous parallel walls is considered. A solution for small suction Reynolds number has been given by the authors in a previous paper. The purpose of this paper is to present a solution valid for large Reynolds numbers for the cases of (i) suction at both walls, and (ii) suction at one wall and injection at the other. A technique of matching outer and inner expansions is used to obtain an asymptotic solution for both of these cases. Further a perturbation solution for the case of suction at one wall and injection at the other is obtained by choosing the difference between two wall velocities as the perturbation parameter. Both asymptotic and perturbation solutions are confirmed by exact numerical solutions. As expected, the resulting solutions show the presence of the usual suction boundary layers in both types of flow considered in this paper.     

Numerical Investigation of Magnetic Nanoparticles Distribution Inside a Cylindrical Porous Tumor Considering the Influences of Interstitial Fluid Flow

A numerical simulation of interstitial fluid flow and blood flow and diffusion of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are developed, based on the governing equations for the fluid flow, i.e., the continuity and momentum and mass diffusion equations, to a tissue containing two-dimensional cylindrical tumor. The tumor is assumed to be rigid porous media with a necrotic core, interstitial fluid and two capillaries with arterial pressure input and venous pressure output. Blood flow through the capillaries and interstitial fluid flow in tumor tissues are carried by extended Poiseuille’s law and Darcy’s law, respectively. Transvascular flows are also described using Starling’s law. MNPs diffuse by interstitial fluid flow in tumor. The finite difference method has been used to simulate interstitial fluid pressure and velocity, blood pressure and velocity and diffusion of MNPs injected inside a biological tissue during magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH). Results show that the interstitial pressure has a maximum value at the center of the tumor and decreases toward the first capillary. The reduction continues between two capillaries, and interstitial pressure finally decreases in direction of the tumor perimeter. This study also shows that decreasing in intercapillary distance may cause a decrease in interstitial pressure. Furthermore, multi-site injection of nanoparticles has better effect on MFH.