Numerical Investigation of the Second Transition in the Problem of Plane Convective Flow through a Porous Medium

The problem of convective flow through a porous medium in a plane rectangular vessel with a linear temperature profile steadily maintained on the boundary is considered. Single-parameter families of steady-state regimes resulting from the existence of cosymmetry of the corresponding differential equations are investigated using the Galerkin method. The onset and development of instability on these families and the characteristics of convective regimes as functions of the seepage Rayleigh number and the rectangle side ratio are studied. It is shown that the number of regimes which lose stability, the instability type, the number of convective rollers developed, and the heat transfer depend significantly on the vessel geometry. Several bifurcations of single-parameter families of steady-state regimes are identified and investigated.     

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.     

Flow from the Soil Surface into a Fractured Porous Aeration Zone

The one-dimensional problem of the contamination of a fractured porous aeration zone as a result of a fast spill of fluid over the soil surface is investigated. The block capillary imbibition rate is approximated with allowance for the experimental data. An analytic dependence describing the trajectory of the leading contamination front is obtained and the depth of penetration of the spill into the soil is found. The block contamination profile is determined.     

Influence of Adsorption and Desorption of Gas Micronuclei on the Nature of the Flow of a Gassy Liquid through a Porous Medium

The problem of gassy liquid flow through a porous medium is considered theoretically. Periodic oscillations of the liquid and gas flow rate observed experimentally are attributable to the processes of sorption and desorption of gas micronuclei on the walls of the pore space and their diffusion. In the kinetic equation employed the desorption rate is directly proportional to the adsorbed micronucleus concentration and the seepage rate, and the adsorption rate is directly proportional to the product of the mobile micronucleus concentration and the free site concentration on the pore surfaces. Steady-state solutions of this equation are investigated. It is shown that periodic oscillations of the flow rate can manifest themselves only when the processes of micronuclei adsorption predominate over the desorption processes.     

The Role of Capillarity in Two-Phase Flow through Porous Media

When determining experimentally relative permeability and capillary pressure as a function of saturation, a self-consistent system of macroscopic equations, that includes Leverett's equation for capillary pressure, is required. In this technical note, such a system of equations, together with the conditions under which the equations apply, is formulated. With the aid of this system of equations, it is shown that, at the inlet boundary of a vertically oriented porous medium, static conditions pertain, and that potentials, because of the definition of potential, are equal in magnitude to pressures. Consequently, Leverett's equation is valid at the inlet boundary of the porous medium, provided cocurrent flow, or gravity-driven, countercurrent flow is taking place, and provided the porous medium is homogeneous. Moreover, it is demonstrated that Leverett's equation is valid for flow along the length of a vertically oriented porous medium, provided cocurrent flow, or gravity-driven, countercurrent flow is taking place, and provided the porous medium is homogeneous and there are no hydrodynamic effects. However, Leverett's equation is invalid for horizontal, steady-state, forced, countercurrent flow. When such flow is taking place, it is the sum of the pressures, and not the difference in pressures, which is related to capillary pressure.     

Seepage-Diffusion Model of Brine Migration in Inhomogeneous Aquifers

A new phenomenological mathematical model of the propagation of high- and low-salinity solutions through inhomogeneous aquifers is proposed. The model consists of interrelated equations of two-phase flow and diffusive mass transfer through a porous medium in a region with a traveling boundary. Features of different contamination scenarios of are analyzed with reference to particular examples.     

Effect of flows between formations and capillary forces on the process of oil displacement in a stratified inhomogeneous bed

The results of a numerical investigation of the process of oil displacement in a stratified inhomogeneous formation on the basis of the two-phase flow model with account for capillary forces are presented. It is shown that in many cases the vertical inhomogeneity of oil reservoirs may not be a cause of nonuniform displacement and the non-recovery of large oil reserves by the time of water breakthrough to the extraction surface. The action of the capillary forces is an additional factor leading to equalization of the water propagation front in the inhomogeneous formation, water breakthrough delay, and intensification of the mass transfer between the layers with different permeabilities. Analysis of the contribution of the interlayer flows to the water flooding of low-permeability formation intervals calls into question the practicability of blocking high-permeability inclusions in the neighborhood of pumping wells.     

Phase Transitions in Flow through a Heat-Conducting Porous Skeleton

The features of one-dimensional seepage flows of a medium in the form of a liquid, vapor, or liquid-vapor mixture are considered. It is assumed that the temperatures of the medium and the porous skeleton through which it flows are determined both by the heat-conduction processes in the skeleton and the medium and by the phase transitions of the medium (evaporation or condensation). The phase transition fronts and their structure are investigated for a pure medium, i.e., a liquid or vapor but not a mixture, no at least one side of the front. Moreover, the possible existence of a form of flow, not considered earlier, in which in a certain region of space the thermodynamic state of the particles belongs to the phase transition interface between the pure state and the mixture. The flows are considered in general form without specifying the properties of the medium.     

Permanent Fronts in Two-Phase Flows in a Porous Medium

A family of exact solutions for a model of a one-dimensional horizontal flow of two immiscible, incompressible fluids in a porous medium, including the effects of capillary pressure, is obtained analytically by solving the governing singular parabolic nonlinear diffusion equation. Each solution has the form of a permanent front propagating with a constant velocity. It is shown that, for every propagation velocity, there exists a set of permanent fronts all of which are moving with this velocity in an inflowing wetting–outflowing non-wetting flow configuration. Global bifurcations of this set, with the front velocity as a bifurcation parameter, are investigated analytically and numerically in detail in the case when the permeabilities and the capillary pressure are linear functions of the wetting phase saturation. Main results for the nonlinear Brooks–Corey model are also presented. In both models three global bifurcations occur. By using a geometric dynamical system approach, the nonlinear stability of the permanent fronts is established analytically. Based on the permanent front solutions, an interpretation of the dynamics of an arbitrary front of finite extent in the model is given as follows. The instantaneous upstream (downstream) velocity of an arbitrary non-quasistationary front is equal to the velocity of a permanent front whose shape coincides up to two leading orders with the instantaneous shape of the non-quasistationary front at the upstream (respectively, downstream) location. The upstream and downstream locations of the front undergo instantaneous translations governed by modified nonsingular hyperbolic equations. The portion of the front in between these locations undergoes a diffusive redistribution governed by a nonsingular nonlinear parabolic diffusion equation. We have proposed a numerical approach based on a parabolic–hyperbolic domain decomposition for computing non-quasistationary fronts.     

Effect of vibration on the stability of a plane displacement front in a porous medium

The effect of linearly polarized vibration on the stability of a plane displacement front in a porous medium is studied. The problem of the stability of the motion of a plane displacement front traveling at a constant velocity U under the action of vibration normal to the front is considered. It is shown that under the action of vibration the dynamics of the plane displacement front can be described by the Mathieu equation with a dissipative term. Using the standard averaging method, in the case of high-frequency vibration it is revealed that vibration can only increase the stability of the system. It is found that the vibration stabilizes the plane displacement front with respect to part of the perturbation spectrum.     

Effect of residual oil saturation on the flow through a porous medium in the neighborhood of an injection well

Models of the residual oil saturation and models of its effect on the flow in injection wells are proposed. The threshold nature of the dependence of the residual oil saturation on the capillary number determines a change in the flow regimes in the neighborhood of the injection well. The cases of pure, contaminated, and compressible reservoirs are considered. The dependences of the basic problem parameters on the displacement conditions and the state of the reservoir are obtained, together with formulas for the pressure distribution and well injectivity. The topicality of such a simulation for field calculations is demonstrated.     

Simulation of micellar-polymericwater-flooding in a system of wells

A mathematical model of the time-dependent two-dimensional flow of a two-phase multicomponent incompressible fluid through a porous medium is proposed for the micellar-polymeric flooding of oil reservoirs. The oil displacement process is investigated numerically using an implicit first-order-accurate upwind scheme with integration over the nonlinearity on a uniform grid under the assumption of plane-radial motion in the neighborhood of the wells. The influence of the nonuniform permeability of the porous medium on the efficiency of the proposed method of improving oil recovery is analyzed using a five-point slug injection scheme.Translated from Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Academii Nauk, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 6, 2004, pp. 124–132. Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by Inogamov and Khabeev.     

Asymptotic Analysis of the Joining of an Ice-Rock Body in Flow Through Porous Media

The problem of determining the equilibrium configuration of a plane, doubly connected ice-rock body formed about a system of two freezing columns traversing a flow through a porous medium is asymptotically analyzed in the limit of small Péclet numbers. Two terms of the asymptotic expansion are retained. It is shown that in this approximation the criterion of joining of the doubly connected body coincides with the criterion of non-disjoining of the simply connected body. However, the solution structure is such that taking the third asymptotic term into account can lead to a second solution when the ice-rock body is close to joining. This means that the size of the joining-disjoining hysteresis loop is of at least the second order in the Péclet number.     

Phase discontinuities in water flows through a porous medium

Flow of a fluid through a porous medium is considered with allowance for heat conduction processes and phase transitions. Discontinuities in flows between both single-phase zones saturated with water and steam and single-and two-phase zones saturated with an equilibrium steam-water mixture are studied. It is shown that only the evaporation fronts are evolutionary for a convex-downward shock adiabat of the discontinuity inside the steam-water mixture. The structure of these fronts is considered and a condition supplementary to the conservation laws and necessary for the well-posed formulation of problems whose solution contains this front is found from the condition of existence of a discontinuity structure between the water (steam) and the steam-water mixture.     

Plane steady-state incompressible fluid flow through a porous medium with a nonlinear resistance laws in the presence of a sink

Plane nonlinear fluid flows through a porous medium which simulate a sink located at the same distance from the roof and floor of the stratum for two nonlinear flow laws are constructed. The following flow laws are taken: a power law and a law of special form reducing to analytic functions in the hodograph plane.     

Buoyant Flow with Viscous Heating in a Vertical Circular Duct Filled with a Porous Medium

Combined, forced, and free flow in a vertical circular duct filled with a porous medium is investigated according to the Darcy–Boussinesq model. The effect of viscous dissipation is taken into account. It is shown that a thermal boundary condition compatible with fully developed and axisymmetric flow is either a linearly varying wall temperature in the axial direction or, only in the case of uniform velocity profile, an axial linear-exponential wall temperature change. The case of a linearly varying wall temperature corresponds to a uniform wall heat flux and includes the uniform wall temperature as a special case. A general analytical solution procedure is performed, by expressing the seepage velocity profile as a power series with respect to the radial coordinate. It is shown that, for a fixed thermal boundary condition, i.e., for a prescribed slope of the wall temperature, and for a given flow rate, there exist two solutions of the governing balance equations provided that the flow rate is lower than a maximum value. When the maximum value is reached, the dual solutions coincide. When the flow rate is higher than its maximum, no axisymmetric solutions exist. E. Magyari is on leave from the Institute of Building Technology, ETH—Zürich.     

A Directed Percolation Model for Clogging in a Porous Medium with Small Inhomogeneities

We propose a microscopic model based on directed percolation for the process of mechanical clogging of a porous medium by particles suspended in a fluid flow. Under appropriate conditions the deposited particles may form fractal clusters. A criterion for the occurrence of fractal clogging is presented. It links together the particle size and the pore size distribution. The effect of microscopic inhomogeneities is studied inside and outside the critical region using Monte Carlo calculations in two dimensions. The critical exponents remain unchanged because the perturbation induced by these inhomogeneities is irrelevant. The percolation threshold is found to shift to higher values almost linearly with increasing size of obstacles. For size distributed obstacles the arithmetic mean of the distribution is the only significant parameter which determines the shift. Type and broadness of the distribution have no influence. Also the percolation probability depends only on the mean even outside the critical region for all values of the occupation probability. Occupying the same fraction of the porous matrix, large obstacles cause more particles to deposit than small ones.     

Mixed Convection Boundary-Layer Flow in a Porous Medium Filled with Water Close to its Maximum Density

The steady mixed convection boundary-layer flow over a vertical impermeable surface in a porous medium saturated with water close to its maximum density is considered for uniform wall temperature and outer flow. The problem can be reduced to similarity form and the resulting equations are examined in terms of a mixed convection parameter λ and a parameter δ which measures the difference between the ambient temperature and the temperature at the maximum density. Both assisting (λ > 0) and opposing flows (λ < 0) are considered. A value δ₀ is found for which there are dual solutions for a range λ_c < λ < 0 of λ (the value of λ_c dependent on δ) and single solutions for all λ ≥ 0. Another value of δ₁ of δ, with δ₁ > δ₀, is found for which there are dual solutions for a range 0 < λ < λ_c of positive values of λ, with solutions for all λ≤ 0. There is also a range δ₀ <  δ < δ₁ where there are solutions only for a finite range of λ, with critical points at both positive and negative values of λ, thus putting a finite limit on the range of existence of solutions.     

Scenarios of the onset of unsteady regimes in the problem of plane convective flow through a porous medium

The problem of plane convective flow through a porous medium in a rectangular vessel with a linear temperature profile steadily maintained on the boundary is considered. The onset of unsteady regimes is investigated numerically. It is shown that their onset scenarios depend on the vessel dimensions and the seepage Rayleigh number and may be as follows: the generation of stable and unstable periodic regimes as a result of a one-sided bifurcation, the generation of a stable periodic regime as a result of an Andronov-Hopf cosymmetric bifurcation, the formation of a chaotic attractor, the branching-out of a stable quasi-periodic regime from a point of a single-parameter family of steady-state regimes, and the generation of unstable periodic regimes as a result of disintegration of homoclinic trajectories. The specifics of most of the bifurcations mentioned above are attributable to the cosymmetry of the problem considered.     

Unsteady one-dimensional water and steam flows through a porous medium with allowance for phase transitions

Fluid flow through a porous medium is considered with allowance for heat conduction and phase transition processes. The one-dimensional problem of the breakdown of an arbitrary discontinuity is solved with reference to the processes of combined nonisothermal water and steam flow through the porous medium. It is assumed that there are two-phase zones of water and steam flow through the porous medium to the left and right of the initial discontinuity. Six qualitatively different discontinuous solutions with internal single-phase water or steam zones are constructed and domains corresponding to each of the solutions are found in the determining parameter space. For the parameters considered a solution of the breakdown problem exists and is unique when the requirements for the existence of a discontinuity structure are satisfied [{xc1}].