Physical approach to averaging theorems on phase interfaces in a dispersed multiphase medium

Within the framework of a procedure for scale-changing by averaging a representative elementary volume, theorems are developed to relate the averages of derivatives to the derivatives of averages over a surface, using elementary differential calculus. These theorems form the basis of a general macroscopic balance equation for a given quantity over interfaces of a dispersed multiphase medium. The equations of phase interfaces complement equations related to bulk phases describing transport in dispersed multiphase media.     

Analysis of hydrodynamic and thermal dispersion in porous media by means of a local approach

A pore scale analysis is implemented in this numerical study to investigate the behavior of microscopic inertia and thermal dispersion in a porous medium with a periodic structure. The macroscopic characteristics of the transport phenomena are evaluated with an averaging technique of the controlling variables at a pore scale level in an elementary cell of the porous structure. The Darcy–Forchheimer model describes the fluid motion through the porous medium while the continuity and Navier–Stokes equations are applied within the unit cell. An average energy equation is employed for the thermal part of the porous medium. The macroscopic pressure loss is computed in order to evaluate the dominant microscopic inertial effects. Local fluctuations of velocity and temperature at the pore scale are instrumental in the quantification of the thermal dispersion through the total effective thermal diffusivity. The numerical results demonstrate that microscopic inertia contributes significantly to the magnitude of the macroscopic pressure loss, in some instances with as much as 70%. Depending on the nature of the porous medium, the thermal dispersion may have a marked bearing on the heat transfer, particularly in the streamwise direction for a highly conducting fluid and certain values of the Peclet number.     

A scale-dependent equation for solute transport in porous media

The governing equation describing solute transport in porous media is reformulated using standard volume averaging techniques. The alternative formulation is based on a modified definition of the deviation, which allows for variation of macroscopic velocity across the REV. The new equation contains additional scale-dependent terms which are functions of the size of the averaging volume (REV). This result indicates that the scale-dependent nature of the dispersion phenomenon is inherent even at the scale of the REV.     

Macroscopic modelling of transport phenomena in porous media. 2: Applications to mass,momentum and energy transport

In this second paper, the averaging rules presented in Part 1 are employed in order to develop a general macroscopic balance equation and particular equations for mass, mass of a component, momentum and energy, all of a phase in a porous medium domain. These balance equations involve averaged fluxes. Then macroscopic equations are developed for advective, dispersive and diffusive fluxes, all in terms of averaged state variables of the system. These are combined with the macroscopic balance equations to yield field equations that serve as the core of the mathematical models that describe the transport of extensive quantities in a porous medium domain. It is shown that the methodology of averaging leads to a better understanding of the effective stress concept employed in dealing with transport phenomena in deformable porous media.     

Coupled Upscaling Approaches For Conduction, Convection, and Radiation in Porous Media: Theoretical Developments

This study deals with macroscopic modeling of heat transfer in porous media subjected to high temperature. The derivation of the macroscopic model, based on thermal non-equilibrium, includes coupling of radiation with the other heat transfer modes. In order to account for non-Beerian homogenized phases, the radiation model is based on the generalized radiation transfer equation and, under some conditions, on the radiative Fourier law. The originality of the present upscaling procedure lies in the application of the volume averaging method to local energy conservation equations in which radiation transfer is included. This coupled homogenization mainly raises three challenges. First, the physical natures of the coupled heat transfer modes are different. We have to deal with the coexistence of both the material system (where heat conduction and/or convection take place) and the non-material radiation field composed of photons. This radiation field is homogenized using a statistical approach leading to the definition of radiation properties characterized by statistical functions continuously defined in the whole volume of the porous medium. The second difficulty concerns the different scales involved in the upscaling procedure. Scale separation, required by the volume averaging method, must be compatible with the characteristic length scale of the statistical approach. The third challenge lies in radiation emission modeling, which depends on the temperature of the material system. For a semi-transparent phase, this temperature is obtained by averaging the local-scale temperature using a radiation intrinsic average while a radiation interface average is used for an opaque phase. This coupled upscaling procedure is applied to different combinations of opaque, transparent, or semi-transparent phases. The resulting macroscopic models involve several effective transport properties which are obtained by solving closure problems derived from the local-scale physics.     

Investigation of Donnan equilibrium in charged porous materials—a scale transition analysis

We propose a new theory describing how the macroscopic Donnan equilibrium potential can be derived from the microscale by a scale transition analysis. Knowledge of the location and magnitude of the charge density, together with the morphology of the pore space allows one to calculate the Donnan potential, characterizing ion exclusion in charged porous materials. Use of the electrochemical potential together with Gauss’ electrostatic theorem allows the computation of the ion and voltage distribution at the microscale. On the other hand, commonly used macroscopic counterparts of these equations allow the estimation of the Donnan potential and ion concentration on the macroscale. However, the classical macroscopic equations describing phase equilibrium do not account for the non-homogeneous distribution of ions and voltage at the microscale, leading to inconsistencies in determining the Donnan potential (at the macroscale). A new generalized macroscopic equilibrium equation is derived by means of volume averaging of the microscale electrochemical potential. These equations show that the macroscopic voltage is linked to so-called “effective ion concentrations”, which for ideal solutions are related to logarithmic volume averages of the ion concentration at the microscale. The effective ion concentrations must be linked to an effective fixed charge concentration by means of a generalized Poisson equation in order to deliver the correct Donnan potential. The theory is verified analytically and numerically for the case of two monovalent electrolytic solutions separated by a charged porous material. For the numerical analysis a hierarchical modeling approach is employed using a one-dimensional (1D)macroscale model and a two-dimensional (2D)microscale model. The influence of various parameters such as surface charge density and ion concentration on the Donnan potential are investigated.     

Scale-dependent Macroscopic Balance Equations Governing Transport Through Porous Media: Theory and Observations

A theory is developed providing a rational framework for spatial scale- dependent fluid’s flow and heat transfer, and mass of a component migrating with it through porous media. Introducing the assumption of a non-Brownian type motion and referring to asymptotic expansion in powers of a small defined parameter, we develop a novel approach associated with macroscopic balance equations obtained by averaging over a Representative Elementary Volume (REV). We prove that these equations can be decomposed into a primary part that refers to the REV length scale and a secondary part valid at a length scale smaller than that of the corresponding REV length. Further to our previous development, we obtain two general forms of the primary and secondary macroscopic balance equations. One is based on the assumption that the advective flux of the extensive quantity is dominant over that of the dispersive flux, whereas the other disregards this assumption. Moreover we also introduce the primary and secondary macroscopic forms for the fluid heat- transfer equation. Considering a Newtonian fluid, the resulting primary Navier–Stokes equation can vary from a nonlinear wave equation to a drag-dominant equation at the fluid–solid interface (Darcy’s law). The secondary momentum balance equation describes a wave equation governing the concurrent propagation of the intensive momentum and the dispersive momentum flux, deviating from their corresponding average terms. The primary macroscopic fluid heat-transfer equation accounts for advective and dispersive heat fluxes and the secondary macroscopic heat-transfer equation involves the simultaneous advection of heat deviating from its corresponding intensive average quantity. The primary macroscopic solute mass balance equation accounts for advection and hydrodynamic dispersion. The secondary macroscopic component mass balance equation is in the form of pure advection governing migration of the deviation from the average component concentration. At this stage, we focus on establishing the viability of the developed theory. We do this by arguing that field observations of motion at small spatial scales are coherent with the hyperbolic characteristics of the secondary balance equations. Field observations under natural gradient flow conditions show excessive high concentration (average of 50 mg/L) of colloids under land irrigated by sewage effluents. We argue that this displacement of condensed colloidal parcels manifests the theoretical findings for the smaller spatial scale. Further evidence show the accumulation of particles moving behind the front of an emitted shockwave. We consider this as an experimental proof reinforcing the argument that colloidal migration is subject to the action of a shockwave in the fluid and pure advection transport, governed by the respective suggested hyperbolic macroscopic balance equations of fluid momentum and component mass at the smaller spatial scale.     

Impact of Non-uniform Properties on Governing Equations for Fluid Flows in Porous Media

The macroscopic governing equations of a compressible multicomponents flow with non-uniform viscosity and with mass withdrawal (due to heterogeneous reactions) in a porous medium are developed. The method of volume averaging was used to transform local (or microscopic) governing equations into averaged (or macroscopic) governing equations. The impacts of compressibility, non-uniform viscosity, and mass withdrawal on the form of the averaged equations and on the value of the macroscopic transport coefficients were investigated. The results showed that the averaged mass conservation equation is significantly affected by mass withdrawal when a specific criterion on the size of the domain is respected. The results also showed that the form of the averaged momentum equations is not affected by mass withdrawal, by compressibility effects or by non-uniform viscosity, provided that the Reynolds number at the pore level is small. Nonetheless, the velocity field is affected by the heterogeneous reaction via the averaged mass conservation equation, and also by viscosity variations due to the presence of the volume-averaged viscosity (which value changes with position) in the averaged momentum equations. A new closure variable definition was proposed to formulate the closure problem, which avoided the need to solve an integro-differential equation in the closure problem. This formulation was used to show that the permeability tensor only depends on the geometry of the porous medium. In other words, that tensor is independent on whether the fluid is compressible/incompressible, has uniform/non-uniform viscosities, and whether mass withdrawal due to heterogeneous reactions is present/absent.     

Ensemble phase averaged equations for multiphase flows in porous media. Part 2: A general theory

Most models for multiphase flows in a porous medium are based on a straightforward extension of Darcy’s law, in which each fluid phase is driven by its own pressure gradient. The pressure difference between the phases is thought to be an effect of surface tension and is called capillary pressure. Independent of Darcy’s law, for liquid imbibition processes in a porous material, diffusion models are sometime used. In this paper, an ensemble phase averaging technique for continuous multiphase flows is applied to derive averaged equations and to examine the validity of the commonly used models. Closure for the averaged equations is quite complicated for general multiphase flows in a porous material. For flows with a small ratio of the characteristic length of the phase interfaces to the macroscopic length, the closure relations can be simplified significantly by an approximation with a second order error in this length ratio. This approximation reveals the information of the length scale separation obscured during an averaging process and leads to an equation system similar to Darcy’s law, but with additional terms. Based on interactions on phase interfaces, relations among closure quantities are studied.     

Upscaling of Nonwetting Phase Residual Transport in Porous Media: A Network Approach

Based on the volume averaging method, a macroscopic model is developed for the upscaling of NAPL transport in a porous medium idealised by a network model. Under the assumption of local mass non-equilibrium, a macroscopic equation involving a dispersion tensor, additional convective terms and a linear form for the interfacial mass flux is obtained. The resolution of the two local closure problems obtained allow the determination of the local properties without adjustable parmeters. These problems are solved in a semi-analytical, semi-numerical manner on the network. The originality of this work is the association of the upscaling by volume averaging method with the network approach. The local properties, including the dispersion tensor and the mass exchange coefficient, can therefore be calculated over a large number of pore-bodies and pore-throats in a computationaly tractable manner, thus leading to more significant results. Results are presented for 3D, spatially periodic models of porous media.     

The constitutive equations of finite strain poroelasticity in the light of a micro-macro approach

After recalling the constitutive equations of finite strain poroelasticity formulated at the macroscopic level, we adopt a microscopic point of view which consists of describing the fluid-saturated porous medium at a space scale on which the fluid and solid phases are geometrically distinct. The constitutive equations of poroelasticity are recovered from the analysis conducted on a representative elementary volume of porous material open to fluid mass exchange. The procedure relies upon the solution of a boundary value problem defined on the solid domain of the representative volume undergoing large elastic strains. The macroscopic potential, computed as the integral of the free energy density over the solid domain, is shown to depend on the macroscopic deformation gradient and the porous space volume as relevant variables. The corresponding stress-type variables obtained through the differentiation of this potential turn out to be the macroscopic Boussinesq stress tensor and the pore pressure. Furthermore, such a procedure makes it possible to establish the necessary and sufficient conditions to ensure the validity of an ‘effective stress’ formulation of the constitutive equations of finite strain poroelasticity. Such conditions are notably satisfied in the important case of an incompressible solid matrix.     

Dependency of Tortuosity and Permeability of Porous Media on Directional Distribution of Pore Voids

Single-phase fluid flow in porous media is usually direction dependent owing to the tortuosity associated with the internal structures of materials that exhibit inherent anisotropy. This article presents an approach to determine the tortuosity and permeability of porous materials using a structural measure quantifying the anisotropic distribution of pore voids. The approach uses a volume averaging method through which the macroscopic tortuosity tensor is related to both the average porosity and the directional distribution of pore spaces. The permeability tensor is derived from the macroscopic momentum balance equation of fluid in a porous medium and expressed as a function of the tortuosity tensor and the internal structure of the material. The analytical results generally agree with experimental data in the literature.     

湍流两相流的脉动速度联合PDF输运方程

概率密度函数（PDF）的方法是构造两相湍流模型的一种重要的方法.构建气体-颗粒速度联合PDF输运方程的关键是颗粒所见气体微团速度的Langevin方程.首先由N-S方程出发,精确推导出颗粒所见气体微团脉动速度的Langevin方程,进而通过理论分析表明,对比通常采用的颗粒所见气体微团瞬时速度的Langevin方程而言,采用前者能有效地减少关联量的统计偏差.最后,给出了颗粒-气体脉动速度的联合PDF输运方程.     

A WAVE EQUATION MODEL TO SOLVE THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL TRANSPORT EQUATION

The wave equation model, originally developed to solve the advection–diffusion equation, is extended to the multidimensional transport equation in which the advection velocities vary in space and time. The size of the advection term with respect to the diffusion term is arbitrary. An operator-splitting method is adopted to solve the transport equation. The advection and diffusion equations are solved separate ly at each time step. During the advection phase the advection equation is solved using the wave equation model. Consistency of the first-order advection equation and the second-order wave equation is established. A finite element method with mass lumping is employed to calculate the three-dimensional advection of both a Gaussian cylinder and sphere in both translational and rotational flow fields. The numerical solutions are accurate in comparison with the exact solutions. The numerical results indicate that (i) the wave equation model introduces minimal numerical oscillation, (ii) mass lumping reduces the computational costs and does not significantly degrade the numerical solutions and (iii) the solution accuracy is relatively independent of the Courant number provided that a stability constraint is satisfied. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generalized Taylor-Aris moment analysis of the transport of sorbing solutes through porous media with spatially-periodic retardation factor

Taylor-Aris dispersion theory, as generalized by Brenner, is employed to investigate the macroscopic behavior of sorbing solute transport in a three-dimensional, hydraulically homogeneous porous medium under steady, unidirectional flow. The porous medium is considered to possess spatially periodic geochemical characteristics in all three directions, where the spatial periods define a rectangular parallelepiped or a unit-element. The spatially-variable geochemical parameters of the solid matrix are incorporated into the transport equation by a spatially-periodic distribution coefficient and consequently a spatially-periodic retardation factor. Expressions for the effective or large-time coefficients governing the macroscopic solute transport are derived for solute sorbing according to a linear equilibrium isotherm as well as for the case of a first-order kinetic sorption relationship. The results indicate that for the case of a chemical equilibrium sorption isotherm the longitudinal macrodispersion incorporates a second term that accounts for the eflect of averaging the distribution coefficient over the volume of a unit element. Furthermore, for the case of a kinetic sorption relation, the longitudinal macrodispersion expression includes a third term that accounts for the effect of the first-order sorption rate. Therefore, increased solute spreading is expected if the local chemical equilibrium assumption is not valid. The derived expressions of the apparent parameters governing the macroscopic solute transport under local equilibrium conditions agreed reasonably with the results of numerical computations using particle tracking techniques.     

Diffusion–Convection in a Porous Medium with Impervious Inclusions at Low Flow Rates

The aim of this paper is to develop a macroscopic model for the transport of a passive solute, by diffusion and convection, in a heterogeneous medium consisting of impervious solids periodically distributed in a porous matrix. In the porous part, the flow is described by Darcy's law. Attempt is made to derive the macroscopic equation governing the average concentration field in the equivalent macroscopic medium and the macroscopic transport parameters. The analysis is conducted in the case when convection and diffusion are of the same order of magnitude at the macroscopic level, that is, when the Péclet number is of order 1. The proposed macroscopic model is obtained using the homogenization method for periodic structures with a double scale asymptotic expansion, in which the small parameter is the ratio between the two characteristic lengths l (the period scale of the impervious bodies distribution) and L (the scale of the macroscopic sample). The macroscopic parameters, which characterize the multiporous medium, depend solely on the transport parameters in the porous matrix and on the geometry of the impervious inclusions without any phenomenological assumption. Numerical computations are performed using a finite element method for several geometries of the solid inclusions, in two- and three-dimensional cases.     

Using a Smoothing Averaging Operator to Evaluate Macroscopic Parameters in Structurally Inhomogeneous Materials

A smoothing averaging operator is used in passing from structural to macroscopic modeling of the stress–strained state of an article from a composite material taking into account finite strains. A model is constructed using an integral operator, in which the macroscopic laws of conservation of energy and mass and the equation of motion have the ordinary form used to describe processes in homogeneous materials. As an example, macroscopic parameters are evaluated in a system consisting of an ensemble of inclusions in an infinite matrix.     

MICROMECHANICS ANALYSIS FOR UNSATURATED GRANULAR SOILS

This paper aims at establishing an anisotropic stress expression for unsaturated pendular-state granular soils. Using the second-order fabric tensor, we formulate a micromechanics scheme of soils with statistically averaging method, and reveal that the macroscopic average stress of unsaturated granular soils in pendular-state is not isotropic. Not only is the stress from contact forces anisotropic due to the fabric, but also the capillary stress is directional dependent, which is different from the common point that the capillary stress is isotropic. The capillary stress of unsaturated pendular-state granular soils is determined by the orientation distribution of contact normals, so it is closely related to the initial and induced anisotropy of soils. Finally, DEM numerical simulations of triaxial compression tests of pendular-state soils at different degrees of saturation are used to verify the existence of above anisotropy of stresses.