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.     

Simple Expression for the Tortuosity of Porous Media

In this article, we derive a simple expression for the tortuosity of porous media as a function of porosity and of a single parameter characterizing the shape of the porous medium components. Following its value, a very large range of porous materials is described, from non-tortuous to high tortuosity ones with percolation limits. The proposed relation is compared with a widely used expression derived from percolation theory, and its predictive power is demonstrated through comparison with numerical simulations of diffusion phenomena. Application to the tortuosity of hydrated polymeric membranes is shown.     

Pore-Scale Simulation of Shear Thinning Fluid Flow Using Lattice Boltzmann Method

The present work attempts to identify the roles of flow and geometric variables on the scaling factor which is a necessary parameter for modeling the apparent viscosity of non-Newtonian fluid in porous media. While idealizing the porous media microstructure as arrays of circular and square cylinders, the present study uses multi-relaxation time lattice Boltzmann method to conduct pore-scale simulation of shear thinning non-Newtonian fluid flow. Variation in the size and inclusion ratio of the solid cylinders generates wide range of porous media with varying porosity and permeability. The present study also used stochastic reconstruction technique to generate realistic, random porous microstructures. For each case, pore-scale fluid flow simulation enables the calculation of equivalent viscosity based on the computed shear rate within the pores. It is observed that the scaling factor has strong dependence on porosity, permeability, tortuosity and the percolation threshold, while approaching the maximum value at the percolation threshold porosity. The present investigation quantifies and proposes meaningful correlations between the scaling factor and the macroscopic properties of the porous media.     

Factorization of Transport Coefficients in Macroporous Media

We prove the fundamental theorem about factorization of the phenomenological coefficients for transport in macroporous media. By factorization we mean the representation of the transport coefficients as products of geometric parameters of the porous medium and the parameters characteristic of the multicomponent fluid saturating the porous space. The two permeabilities of the porous medium, the convective and the diffusional ones, are separated. A similarity between the diffusional permeability and the porosity–tortuosity factor of the Kozeny–Carman theory is demonstrated. We do not make any specific assumption about stochastic or deterministic structure of the porous medium. The fluxes in fluid on the pore level are described by general relations of the non-equilibrium thermodynamics.     

The effects of the side walls on the flow of a second grade fluid in ducts with suction and injection

The effects of the side walls on the flow in ducts with suction and injection are examined. Three illustrative examples are given. The first example considers the effect of the side walls on the flow over a porous plate. The second example considers the flow between two parallel porous plates and the third example is devoted to the investigation of the flow in a rectangular duct with two porous walls. Exact solution of the governing equation using the no-slip boundary condition and an additional condition are obtained. The expression of the velocity, the volume flux and the vorticity are given. It is found that for large values of the cross-Reynolds number near the suction region the flow for a Newtonian fluid does not satisfy the boundary condition, but it does not behave in the same way for a second grade fluid. Three examples considered show that there are pronounced effects of the side walls on the flows of a second grade fluid in ducts with suction and injection.     

Analytical Model for The Capillary Pressure Gradient in Oil–Water–Rock System

A simplified analytical expression for the capillary pressure gradient in homogeneous porous media is proposed. Basic assumptions are: (1) the three phase contact angle between two fluids and porous rock is finite, (2) the surface area of contact between two fluids is small in comparison with contact surface areas between each fluid and porous rock in the unit volume of the system under consideration, (3) the model corresponds to conditions when both phases are continuous.     

Seismoelectric Fluid/Porous-Medium Interface Response Model and Measurements

Coupled seismic and electromagnetic (EM) wave effects in fluid-saturated porous media are measured since decades. However, direct comparisons between theoretical seismoelectric wavefields and measurements are scarce. A seismoelectric full-waveform numerical model is developed, which predicts both the fluid pressure and the electric wavefields in a fluid in which a porous disc is embedded. An experimental setup, in which pressure and electric signals in the fluid are simultaneously measured, is presented. The setup allows the detection of the EM field that is generated when an acoustic wave crosses the interface between the fluid and the thin porous disc, without interference of electrical fields that are present within seismic body waves. The predicted pressure wavefield agrees well with the measurements in terms of acoustic wave travel times, waveforms, and amplitudes. The electric wavefield predictions agree with the recordings in terms of travel times, waveforms, and spatial amplitude decay. A discrepancy in amplitude of the converted EM signal is observed. Theoretical amplitudes that are smaller than the measurements were also reported in previous literature. These results seem to validate seismoelectric theory.     

Mesoscopic Simulation of Rarefied Flow in Narrow Channels and Porous Media

Rarefied gas flow in channels and computer-aided reconstructions of porous media is simulated using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method and a modified lattice-Boltzmann (LB) method that can account for rarefaction effects. An increase of two orders of magnitude was noted for the gas permeability as the Knudsen number increased from 0.1 to 10. It was found that incorporation of a Bosanquet expression for the viscosity in the dusty gas flux equations leads to the recovery of the well known Klinkenberg expression for the gas permeability, revealing an explicit relation of the, thus far empirical, permeability correction factor to the fluid and structure properties. The expression for the effective gas viscosity in the transition flow regime is also incorporated in the LB method, which is then validated against the DSMC method by comparing predictions for the velocity profiles in straight channels over the entire transition flow regime. The new LB method offers the additional advantages of simplicity in the code implementation and great savings in computational time and memory compared to the DSMC method. It is shown that the rough adjustment of a single parameter suffices to make the LB method suitable for the reliable prediction of the gas permeability in porous media over the entire transition flow regime.     

Numerical simulation of fluid flow in a fractured porous medium

Various approaches to study the fluid flow in a fractured porous medium are discussed. Three approaches are compared by the example of axisymmetric flow in a fluid conducting layer. In the first approach, an elastic flow regime (Terzaghi’s model) is considered for a layer with homogenized properties. In the second approach, the problem is formulated in terms of two unknown functions of pressure averaged over fracture cracks and pores. In the framework of the third approach, a two-scale flow model in which the fluid flow through pores is limited by the size of each porous block is proposed.     

Flow characteristics of anisotropic structures constructed with porous layers

Artificial structures, serving as the solid matrix of anisotropic porous media and satisfying the requirement needed for flow visualization, were constructed with the perforated Polypropylene plates in order to improve the understanding of transport phenomena occurring in anisotropic porous media. This paper reports the regressed correlations of the experimental pressure gradient and filtration velocity data of three anisotropic and one isotropic porous media measured along two mutually orthogonal directions, which correspond to the principal axes of the permeability tensor, for the filtration velocities ranging from 0.2 to 12 mm/s with water as the fluid. To reflect the observed data, the regression equation with two types of deviations was formulated, in which the pressure gradient is represented by the sum of the linear and nonlinear terms of the filtration velocity. The physical model developed for the linear term assumes the solid matrix as repeated circular orifices when the filtration velocity approaches zero. The exponent of the filtration velocity in the nonlinear term was determined to be that of the Forchheimer extension. Also, four models for the coefficient of the nonlinear term were examined and the results were compared. The distribution of the residuals (the differences between the observed and the correlated values) validated the suggested regression procedure and the resulting correlations.     

A constitutive approach to 3-d nonlinear fluid flow through finite deformable porous continua

The present paper proposes a thermodynamically consistent Forchheimer-type filter law for application in macroscopic porous media theories. The constitutive flow equation is thereby capable of describing the essential nonlinearities during 3-d fluid percolation through deformable porous solids. In particular, tortuosity effects, anisotropic properties, and the indispensable influence of finite distortions of the interconnected pore space are accounted for. However, the common shape of a Darcy-type relation is retained by assigning all nonlinearities to a general permeability tensor. Finally, to show the validity and applicability of the proposed formulation, the filter law is correlated with the data of permeability experiments on a high-porosity polyurethane foam and is used in a 3-d finite element analysis to simulate the pneumatic damping properties of the material.     

海洋地震工程流固耦合问题统一计算框架

海底地震动的模拟以及海洋工程结构的地震反应分析中,涉及到海水、饱和海床、弹性基岩、结构之间的相互耦合.传统的方法分别采用声波方程描述理想流体、Biot方程描述饱和海床、弹性波方程描述基岩和结构,分别考虑相互之间的耦合,十分不便.本文基于理想流体、固体分别为饱和多孔介质的特殊情形(孔隙率分别为1和0),由饱和多孔介质的Biot方程可退化得到理想流体的声波方程和固体的弹性波方程.然后,以饱和多孔介质方程为基础,经集中质量有限元离散,考虑不同孔隙率的饱和多孔介质之间耦合的一般情形,建立了该耦合情形的求解方法.进一步论证了该一般情形的耦合计算方法可分别退化到流体与固体、流体与饱和多孔介质、固体与饱和多孔介质之间的耦合计算,从而将流体、固体、饱和多孔介质间的耦合问题纳入到统一计算框架,并编制了相应的三维并行分析程序.以P-SV波垂直入射时,半无限层状海水-饱和海床、海水-弹性基岩、海水-饱和海床-弹性基岩三种情形的动力分析为例,采用统一计算框架结合透射边界条件进行求解,并与传递矩阵方法得到的解进行对比,验证了该统一计算框架的有效性以及并行计算的可行性.      

Darcian Dynamics: A New Approach to the Mobilization of a Trapped Phase in Porous Media

We develop a new approach, which we term Darcian Dynamics, to simulate two-phase (liquid-gas) flow in porous media, when the gas phase is disconnected in the form of ganglia. The method is based on the assumption of homogeneous fluid flow for the liquid, although it does allow for heterogeneous capillary thresholds due to the pore microstructure. Using techniques from potential theory, the hydrodynamic interaction between liquid and gas is expressed through an integral representation over the ganglia interfaces. We use a numerical method to solve the resulting integral equation, and explore conditions for the onset of ganglia mobilization as well as for subsequent events, such as break-up, coalescence and stranding. The interaction between the ganglia and the flowing phase is influenced by the capillary and gravity (Bond) numbers, and by geometric factors, such as size, orientation, and ganglia density. The latter effect depends on the hydrodynamic interaction in addition to the intuitively expected crowding effect.     

Pressure-driven and electroosmotic non-Newtonian flows through microporous media via lattice Boltzmann method

The lattice Boltzmann method is developed to simulate the pressure-driven flow and electroosmotic flow of non-Newtonian fluids in porous media based on the representative elementary volume scale. The flow through porous media was simulated by including the porosity into the equilibrium distribution function and adding a non-Newtonian force term to the evolution equation. The non-Newtonian behavior is considered based on the Herschel–Bulkley model. The velocity results for pressure-driven non-Newtonian flow agree well with the analytical solutions. For the electroosmotic flow, the influences of porosity, solid particle diameter, power law exponent, yield stress and electric parameters are investigated. The results demonstrate that the present lattice Boltzmann model is capable of modeling non-Newtonian flow through porous media.     

The inverse problem of determining the filtration function and permeability reduction in flow of water with particles in porous media

Deep bed filtration of particle suspensions in porous media occurs during water injection into oil reservoirs, drilling fluid invasion of reservoir production zones, fines migration in oil fields, industrial filtering, bacteria, viruses or contaminants transport in groundwater etc. The basic features of the process are particle capture by the porous medium and consequent permeability reduction. Models for deep bed filtration contain two quantities that represent rock and fluid properties: the filtration function, which is the fraction of particles captured per unit particle path length, and formation damage function, which is the ratio between reduced and initial permeabilities. These quantities cannot be measured directly in the laboratory or in the field; therefore, they must be calculated indirectly by solving inverse problems. The practical petroleum and environmental engineering purpose is to predict injectivity loss and particle penetration depth around wells. Reliable prediction requires precise knowledge of these two coefficients. In this work we determine these quantities from pressure drop and effluent concentration histories measured in one-dimensional laboratory experiments. The recovery method consists of optimizing deviation functionals in appropriate subdomains; if necessary, a Tikhonov regularization term is added to the functional. The filtration function is recovered by optimizing a non-linear functional with box constraints; this functional involves the effluent concentration history. The permeability reduction is recovered likewise, taking into account the filtration function already found, and the functional involves the pressure drop history. In both cases, the functionals are derived from least square formulations of the deviation between experimental data and quantities predicted by the model.     

Mathematical modelling of flow through consolidated isotropic porous media

A new mathematical model is proposed for time-independent laminar flow through a rigid isotropic and consolidated porous medium of spatially varying porosity. The model is based upon volumetric averaging concepts. Explicit assumptions regarding the mean geometric properties of the porous microstructure lead to a relationship between tortuosity and porosity. Microscopic inertial effects are introduced through consideration of flow development within the pores. A momentum transport equation is derived in terms of the fluid properties, the porous medium porosity and a characteristic length of the microstructure. In the limiting cases of porosity unity and zero, the model yields the required Navier-Stokes equation for free flow and no flow in a solid, respectively.     

Instability of two streaming conducting and dielectric bounded fluids in porous medium under time-varying electric field

In this paper, we consider the instability of the interface between two superposed streaming conducting and dielectric fluids of finite depths through porous medium in a vertical electric field varying periodically with time. A damped Mathieu equation with complex coefficients is obtained. The method of multiple scales is used to obtain an approximate solution of this equation, and then to analyze the stability criteria of the system. We distinguish between the non-resonance case, and the resonance case, respectively. It is found, in the first case, that both the porosity of porous medium, and the kinematic viscosities have stabilizing effects, and the medium permeability has a destabilizing effect on the system. While in the second case, it is found that each of the frequency of the electric field, and the fluid velocities, as well as the medium permeability, has a stabilizing effect, and decreases the value of the resonance point, while each of the porosity of the porous medium, and the kinematic viscosities has a destabilizing effect, and increases the value of the resonance point. In the absence of both streaming velocities and porous medium, we obtain the canonical form of the Mathieu equation. It is found that the fluid depth and the surface tension have a destabilizing effect on the system. This instability sets in for any value of the fluid depth, and by increasing the depth, the instability holds for higher values of the electric potential; while the surface tension has no effect on the instability region for small wavenumber values. Finally, the case of a steady electric field in the presence of a porous medium is also investigated, and the stability conditions show that each of the fluid depths and the porosity of the porous medium ɛ has a destabilizing effect, while the fluid velocities have stabilizing effect. The stability conditions for two limiting cases of interest, the case of purely fluids), and the case of absence of streaming, are also obtained and discussed in detail.     

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.     

Nonlinear fluid flow laws for orthotropic porous media

Nonlinear fluid flow laws for orthotropic porous media are written in invariant tensor form. As usual in the theory of fluid flow through porous media [1, 2], the equations contain the flow velocity up to the second power. Expressions that determine the nonlinear resistances to fluid flow are presented and it is shown that, on going over from linear to nonlinear flow laws, the asymmetry effect may manifest itself, that is, the fluid flow characteristics may differ along the same straight line in the positive and negative directions. It is shown that, as compared with the linear fluid flow law for orthotropic media when for three symmetry groups a single flow law is sufficient, in nonlinear laws the anisotropy manifestations are much more variable and each symmetry group must be described by specific equations. A system of laboratory measurements for finding the nonlinear flow characteristics for orthotropic porous media is considered.