Measurement of the Permeability Tensor of Compressed Fibre Beds

A new method to measure the permeability tensor of highly compressed fibre beds is developed. The method is based on saturated parallel flow and is evaluated through experiments with various textile materials: press fabrics used in papermaking and fibre reinforcements designed for composites. Since the materials are in the form of sheets, two measuring cells are used, one for the principal in-plane permeabilities and the other for the out-of-plane permeability. A unique feature is that the edge and the bulk flow are measured separately, so that any influence from enhanced or suppressed edge flow may be eliminated. The technique is evaluated with good results in terms of scatter in the measured permeability and the influence of test geometry, pressure, and liquid properties.     

幂律流体在多孔介质中径向渗流的分形模型

基于分形理论及毛细管模型,本文研究了非牛顿幂律流体在各向同性多孔介质中径向流动问题,推导了幂律流体径向有效渗透率的分形解析表达式．研究结果表明,幂律流体径向有效无量纲渗透率模型和Chang and Yortsos’s模型吻合很好;同时还得出幂律流体径向有效渗透率随孔隙率、幂指数的增加而增加,随迂曲度分形维数的增加而减少．     

Effective Radius and Underpressure of an Air Extraction Well in a Heterogeneous Porous Medium

We consider the compressible steady state air flow in a porous medium caused by an extraction well and governed by Darcy's law. For a homogeneous soil matrix we have derived formulas (in 2-D and 3-D) to determine the effective radius of a single well depending on the well position and the depth of the domain. For inhomogeneous case (in 2-D) the influence of the heterogeneity, well position and the depth of the water table on the effective radius and on the pressure at the well is studied.     

Flow Through a Two-Scale Porosity,Oriented Fibre Porous Medium

A model is described for the meso- and micro-flow through an array of oriented fibre tows with meso-channels between the tows. Axial Stokes's flow was considered in the meso-channels and Darcy's law was applied within the porous fibre tows, taking into account injection pressure and capillary pressures in both types of flow. Transverse flow transfer was modelled from the leading flow front to the lagging flow and a partial-slip boundary condition was applied at the permeable boundaries of meso-channels. Flow visualisation experiments and microstructural characterisation of laminates provided appropriate experimental data for model validation. In this, the predictions for the progress of the leading meso-flow were in excellent agreement with the experimental data. Parametric studies followed including the effects of injection pressure and meso-channel size.     

考虑气体压缩性的多孔材料渗透率和惯性系数的测定

多孔介质材料的渗透率和惯性系数是决定多孔介质中流体流动特性的重要参数，一般需要通过实验进行测定，在测定渗透律和惯性系数量，选用气体作为工作介质可以为实验带来极大的方便，然而通常的实验都将气体看作不可压缩流体，直接根据Darcy-Forchheimer定律得到这两个参数，这种近似对实验条件如样品厚度、工作压力等提出了很多要求，本文提出了在考虑气体压缩性的情况下测定渗透率和惯性系数的方法，该方法可以大大降低实验时对样品厚度、工作压力等条件的要求。本文还根据该方法对多孔材料PVF进行了渗透率和惯性系数的测定，并对测量结果进行了验证。     

Permeability of Porous Media from Simulated NMR Response

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is an increasingly popular well-logging tool in petroleum industry because it is the only tool that attempts to estimate formation permeability. In this paper, spatially correlated porous media are generated. Permeabilities of these media are computed by the lattice Boltzmann method. NMR relaxation responses are simulated by a random walk technique and formation factors are computed by solving a Laplacian equation. The testing of commonly used NMR permeability correlations shows that three conditions should be met for the validity of these correlations. The surface relaxivity should not vary significantly. The formation factor should depend only on porosity. And the characteristic pore body radius should be proportional to the characteristic throat radius. The correlations are improved by including surface relaxivity and formation factor.     

A Simple Model for the Variation of Permeability due to Partial Saturation in Dual Scale Porous Media

The main focus of this work is to model macroscopically the effects of partial saturation upon the permeability of dual scale fibrous media made of fiber bundles when a Newtonian viscous fluid impregnates it. A new phenomenological model is proposed to explain the discrepancies between experimental pressure results and analytical predictions based on Darcy's law. This model incorporates the essential features of relative permeability but without the necessity of measuring saturation of the liquid for its prediction. The model is very relevant for the small scale industrial systems where a liquid is forced to flow through a fibrous porous medium. It requires four parameters. Two of them are the two permeability values based on the two length scales. One length scale is of the order of magnitude of the individual fiber radius and corresponds to the permeability of the completely staurated medium, the other is of the order of magnitude of the distance between the fiber bundles and corresponds to the permeability of the partially saturated medium. The other two parameters are the lengths of the two partially saturated regions of the flow domain. The two lengths of the partially saturated region and the permeability of the fully saturated flow domain can be directly measured from the experiments. The excellent agreement between the model and the experimental results of inlet pressure profile with respect to time suggests that this model may be used to describe the variation of the permeability behind a moving front in such porous media for correct pressure prediction. It may also be used to characterize the fibrous medium by determining the two different permeabilities and the relative importance of the unsaturated portion of the flow domain for a given architecture.     

Numerical Simulations of Flows in a Heterogeneous Porous Medium

Numerical simulations are employed to investigate the fluid flow and pressure loss in a heterogeneous block within a composite porous medium. The mean permeability of the heterogeneous block is seen to affect the overall effective flux significantly. The heterogeneous parameters of the permeability field, such as the correlation length and variance, affect it quite differently. Because of the channelling effects, the effective flux depends strongly on the realization of the permeability for larger correlation length. Under a specific permeability field, higher effective flux results from smaller variances. The influences of the inertial factor are found to be insignificant within the range of practical interests.     

General Anisotropic Effective Medium Theory for the Effective Permeability of Heterogeneous Reservoirs

One of the techniques to calculate the effective property of a heterogeneous medium is the effective medium theory. The present paper presents a general mathematical formulation for the effective medium approximation using a self-consistent choice of the effective permeability, to apply it to the case of a general anisotropic 2D medium and to the case of a 3D isotropic medium with randomly oriented ellipsoidal inclusions. The 2D results are compared with analytical results and with a homogenization technique with good result. The 3D correlations are used to derive percolation thresholds in two-phase systems with a large permeability contrast, which are compared to numerical results from the literature, also with good results.     

可变形多孔介质渗透系数的测定方法

在Ｂｉｏｔ理论基础上给出可变形多孔介质耦合渗流基本方程；求出小试件一维定常耦合渗流问题的解答；表明在一维流固耦合情况下试件内部压力梯度有明显的非均匀性。因此通过实验确定可变形多孔介质渗透系数在数学上可归结为微分方程的反问题，传统的测试渗透系数的方法需要改进。介绍了可变形多孔介质渗透系数的测试原理和测试方法。对粒状多孔材料实验的结果表明，传统实验方法得到的渗透系数误差较大。     

不可压饱和粘弹性多孔介质固结问题的Gurtin型变分原理

基于多孔介质理论,在固相骨架和孔隙流体微观不可压,固相骨架小变形且满足线性粘弹性积分型本构关系的假定下,利用卷积积分的性质,本文首先建立了以固相骨架位移、孔隙流体相对速度和孔隙流体压力为宗量的流体饱和粘弹性多孔介质固结问题的一个Gurtin型变分原理.其次,利用Lagrange乘子法解除相关的变分约束条件,建立了流体饱和粘弹性多孔介质固结问题的若干广义Gurtin型变分原理,包括第三类的Hu-Washizu型变分原理.最后,简单讨论了等价初边值问题的相应变分原理.这些Gurtin型变分原理的建立不仅丰富了饱和粘弹性多孔介质的相关理论,而且为相关数值模拟方法,如有限元法、无网格法等的建立奠定了理论基础.     

Origin and quantification of coupling between relative permeabilities for two-phase flows in porous media

An extended formulation of Darcy's two-phase law is developed on the basis of Stokes' equations. It leads, through results borrowed from the thermodynamics of irreversible processes, to a matrix of relative permeabilities. Nondiagonal coefficients of this matrix are due to the viscous coupling exerted between fluid phases, while diagonal coefficients represent the contribution of both fluid phases to the total flow, as if they were alone. The coefficients of this matrix, contrary to standard relative permeabilities, do not depend on the boundary conditions imposed on two-phase flow in porous media, such as the flow rate. This formalism is validated by comparison with experimental results from tests of two-phase flow in a square cross-section capillary tube and in porous media. Coupling terms of the matrix are found to be nonnegligible compared to diagonal terms. Relationships between standard relative permeabilities and matrix coefficients are studied and lead to an experimental way to determine the new terms for two-phase flow in porous media.     

Acoustics of Rotating Deformable Saturated Porous Media

We investigate wave propagation in elastic porous media which are saturated by incompressible viscous Newtonian fluids when the porous media are in rotation with respect to a Galilean frame. The model is obtained by upscaling the flow at the pore scale. We use the method of multiple scale expansions which gives rigorously the macroscopic behaviour without any prerequisite on the form of the macroscopic equations. For Kibel numbers A A(1), the acoustic filtration law resembles a Darcys law, but with a conductivity which depends on the wave frequency and on the angular velocity. The bulk momentum balance shows new inertial terms which account for the convective and Coriolis accelerations. Three dispersive waves are pointed out. An investigation in the inertial flow regime shows that the two pseudo-dilatational waves have a cut-off frequency.     

Large Scale Mixing for Immiscible Displacement in Heterogeneous Porous Media

We derive a large scale mixing parameter for a displacement process of one fluid by another immiscible one in a two-dimensional heterogeneous porous medium. The mixing of the displacing fluid saturation due to the heterogeneities of the permeabilities is captured by a dispersive flux term in the large scale homogeneous flow equation. By making use of the stochastic approach we develop a definition of the dispersion coefficient and apply a Eulerian perturbation theory to determine explicit results to second order in the fluctuations of the total velocity. We apply this method to a uniform flow configuration as well as to a radial one. The dispersion coefficient is found to depend on the mean total velocity and can therefore be time varying. The results are compared to numerical multi-realization calculations. We found that the use of single phase flow stochastics cannot capture all phenomena observed in the numerical simulations.     

关节软骨两相多孔介质非线性模型的有限元方法

基于混合物理论的两相多孔介质模型可以准确描述关节软骨的力学行为，关节软骨的渗透率与固体相体积应变相关。本文研究这一模型的非线性有限元法。具体采用伽辽金加权残值法得到有限元平衡方程，编制了有限元程序，进而对关节软骨围限压缩蠕变和应力松弛行为进行了数值模拟。与视渗透率为常数的线性模型的计算结果比较表明，在变形较大时，渗透率随固体相体积应变变化这一非线性效应不容忽视。     

Delay Model for a Cycling Transport Through Porous Medium

A solute transport through a porous medium is examined provided that the fluid leaving the porous sample returns back in a continuous way. The porous medium is thus included into a closed hydrodynamic circuit. This cycling process is suggested as an experimental tool to determine porous medium parameters describing transport. In the present paper the mathematical theory of this method is developed. For the advective type of transport with solute retention and degradation in porous medium, the system of transport equations in a closed circuit is transformed to a delay differential equation. The exact analytical solution to this equation is obtained. The solute concentration manifests both the oscillatory and monotonous behaviors depending on system parameters. The number of oscillation splashes is shown to be always finite. The maximum/minimum points are determined as solutions of a polynomial equation whose degree depends on the unknown solution itself. The cyclic methods to determine porous medium parameters as porosity and retention rate are developed.     

多孔介质中流动参数的三维显示

本文利用当今三维图形工作站提供的最新视觉化技术，动态显示多孔介质中流动的原理和方法，主要探讨三个问题：（１）改进参数场图像化的质量。力求以逼真的，生活化的三维图形显示参数场的分布；（２）尽可能加快动态显示速度，力求以更强的动感显示出流动过程中参数场的变化规律；（３）尽可能丰富图形编辑功能，提高人机联作交互性。     

Cross-Properties Relations in 3D Percolation Networks: II. Network Permeability

An efficient method to estimate the absolute permeability of three-dimensional percolation networks was proposed. It uses a Kozeny–Carman relationship in the form of a scaling law to relate the network permeability to its hydraulic characteristic length. This characteristic length was determined at the network percolation threshold using a three-dimensional extension of the Hoshen–Kopelman algorithm. For developing the scaling laws, the network permeability was calculated by solving the Kirchoff’s law for all sample spanning clusters that had been identified by the three-dimensional version of the Hoshen–Kopelman algorithm. The method was tested with simple cubic site-bond network models with and without spatial correlations. The universality of the exponents in the scaling laws were also investigated. It was shown that, once the scaling law has been derived, the permeability value can be estimated 3–9 times faster using the present method.     

Stochastic Finite Element Analysis for Multiphase Flow in Heterogeneous Porous Media

This study is concerned with developing a two-dimensional multiphase model that simulates the movement of NAPL in heterogeneous aquifers. Heterogeneity is dealt with in a probabilistic sense by modeling the intrinsic permeability of the porous medium as a stochastic process. The deterministic finite element method is used to spatially discretize the multiphase flow equations. The intrinsic permeability is represented in the model via its Karhunen–Loeve expansion. This is a computationally expedient representation of stochastic processes by means of a discrete set of random variables. Further, the nodal unknowns, water phase saturations and water phase pressures, are represented by their stochastic spectral expansions. This representation involves an orthogonal basis in the space of random variables. The basis consists of orthogonal polynomial chaoses of consecutive orders. The relative permeabilities of water and oil phases, and the capillary pressure are expanded in the same manner, as well. For these variables, the set of deterministic coefficients multiplying the basis in their expansions is evaluated based on constitutive relationships expressing the relative permeabilities and the capillary pressure as functions of the water phase saturations. The implementation of the various expansions into the multiphase flow equations results in the formulation of discretized stochastic differential equations that can be solved for the deterministic coefficients appearing in the expansions representing the unknowns. This method allows the computation of the probability distribution functions of the unknowns for any point in the spatial domain of the problem at any instant in time. The spectral formulation of the stochastic finite element method used herein has received wide acceptance as a comprehensive framework for problems involving random media. This paper provides the application of this formalism to the problem of two-phase flow in a random porous medium.     

Viscous Fingering Instability in Porous Media: Effect of Anisotropic Velocity-Dependent Dispersion Tensor

The viscous fingering of miscible flow displacements in a homogeneous porous media is examined to determine the effects of an anisotropic dispersion tensor on the development of the instability. In particular, the role of velocity-dependent transverse and longitudinal dispersions is investigated through linear stability analysis and nonlinear simulations. It is found that an isotropic velocity-dependent dispersion tensor does not affect substantially the development of the instability and effectively has the same effect as molecular diffusion. On the other hand, an anisotropic velocity-dependent dispersion tensor results in different instability characteristics and more intricate finger structures. It is shown that anisotropic dispersion has profound effects on the development of the fingers and on the mechanisms of interactions between neighboring fingers. The development of the new finger structures is explained by examining the velocity field and characterized qualitatively through a spectral analysis of the average concentration and an analysis of the variations of the sweep efficiency and relative contact area.