Steady water flow through unsaturated aggregated porous materials

The three-dimensional steady water flow through unsaturated aggregated porous materials composed of simple cubic open packed and tetrahedral close packed assemblies of uniform porous spheres is investigated with electric analogues and numerical computations. Water around the spheres is considered to be discontinuous with flow restricted through isolated annular water lenses held by surface tension forces around the contact points between spheres. It is found that the conductance of individual spheres depends only on the size of the water lenses and is independent of the radius of the sphere. For a simple cubic packing the conductance for small lens radii is given by Weber’s formula for flow from an electrified disc into an infinite medium. It follows that the bulk hydraulic conductivity of these assemblies of porous spheres is also independent of aggregate size over a range of water contents. This independence is also shown in measurements of hydraulic conductivity of aggregates of diatomaceous earth that show a convergence to a single relationship between conductivity and water content when there is no longer continuity of water in the macropore space. The effect of the three-dimensional flow through aggregates on solute leaching is demonstrated by considering the numerical results of the stream-tube pattern in a sphere.     

A Scanning Electron Microscopy study of water in soil

Cold stage Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with a rapid cooling technique makes it possible to investigate the water phase within unsaturated porous media. It is thought that this technique preserves the main features of the micromorphology of the water menisci as it exists in the liquid phase in soils. Saddle-shaped elements, as well as pendular rings of water, were observed with concave and convex curvatures of the water-air interface. The hydraulic conductivity of an unsaturated soil may be inferred from SEM photographs. Observations of isolated water menisci indicate the existence of an immobile water domain. The surface geometry of the water menisci was analyzed quantitatively and surface tension and capillary pressure were determined.     

非饱和多孔介质有限元分析的基本控制方程与变分原理

本文在对问题研究现状进行阐述的基础上较系统地给出了骨架可变形非饱和多孔介质的全耦合分析模型，模型中考虑了孔隙气体，水（油）流动对介质力学性能的影响，多孔介质的饱和度，渗透系数与毛吸压力的关系，由实验给出，所导出的控制方程以固体骨架的位移与孔隙流体压力为基本未知量，由于问题的非自共轭特征，文中构造了非饱和介质动力问题的参数变分形式，并在此基础上给出有限元离散方程。     

Efficient Lagrangian scalar tracking method for reactive local mass transport simulation through porous media

Mass transfer in the presence of chemical reactions for flows through porous media is of interest to many disciplines. The Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is particularly attractive in such cases due to the ease with which it handles complicated boundary conditions. However, useful Lagrangian information (such as solute survival distance, effective diffusivity, collision frequency) is challenging to obtain from the LBM. In this paper, we present a straightforward and efficient Lagrangian methodology (Lagrangian scalar tracking, LST) for performing solute transport simulations in the presence of heterogeneous, first‐order, irreversible reactions, based on a velocity field obtained from LBM. The hybrid LST/LBM technique tracks passive mass markers that have two contributions to their movement: convective (obtained through interpolation of a previously obtained velocity field) and Brownian. Various Schmidt number solutes and different solute release modes can be modeled with a single solvent flow field using this method. Moreover, the mass markers can have a range of reaction rate coefficients. This allows for the exploration of the whole spectrum of first‐order heterogeneous reaction rates with just a single simulation. In order to show the applicability of the LST/LBM scheme, results from a case study are presented in which the consumption of oxygen and/or nutrients within a porous bone tissue engineering scaffold is modeled under flow perfusion culturing conditions. Although the reactive LST methodology described in this paper compliments the LBM, it can also be used with any other flow simulation that can generate the velocity field. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Implementation of Richardson extrapolation in an efficient adaptive time stepping method: applications to reactive transport and unsaturated flow in porous media

Environmental studies are commonly carried out through numerical simulations, which have to be accurate, reliable and efficient. When transient problems are considered, the validity of the solutions requires the calculation and management of the temporal discretization errors. This article describes an adaptive time stepping strategy based on the estimation of the local truncation error via the Richardson extrapolation technique. The time-marching scheme is mathematically based on this a posteriori error estimation that has to be gauged. General optimizations are also suggested making the control of both the temporal error and the evolution of the time step size very efficient. Furthermore, the algorithm connecting these methods is all the more interesting as it could be implemented in many computational codes using different numerical schemes. In the hydrogeochemical domain, this algorithm represents an interesting alternative to a fixed time step as shown by the various numerical tests involving reactive transport and unsaturated flow.     

Pore structures and transport properties of sandstone

To quantitatively analyze the macroscopic properties of the flow in porous media by means of the continuum approach, detailed information (velocity and pressure fields) on the microscopic scale is necessary. In this paper, the numerical solution for incompressible, Newtonian flow in a diverging-converging representative unit cell (RUC) is presented. A new solution procedure for the problem is introduced. A review of the accuracy of the computational method is given.Nomenclature A _ff ^* area of entrance and exit of RUC - A _fs ^* interfacial area between the fluid and solid phases - d throat diameter of RUC (m) - D pore diameter of RUC (m) - i, j unit vector for RUC - L ^* wave length of a unit cell - L _p pore length of RUC (m) - L _t throat length of RUC (m) - n unit outwardly directed vector for the fluid phase - p ^* fluid pressure - ^* cross-sectional mean pressure - _en ^* entrance cross-sectional mean pressure - Re _d Reynolds number - x ^*, r^* cylindrical coordinates - u ^*, v^* velocity - u _cl ^* centerline velocity - _d mean velocity at the throat of RUC (m/s) - _D mean velocity at the large segment of RUC (m/s) Greek viscosity coefficient (Ns/m²) - _p excess momentum loss factor defined in (4.1) - fluid density (kg/m³) - ^* stream function - ^* vorticity - dimensionless circulation defined in (2.7) Symbols - the mean value - * dimensionless quantities     

双重孔隙介质非线性流固耦合渗流

本文给出了考虑双孔双涌介质生变形的流固耦合渗流模型。不仅考虑了固结对渗流的影响,同时也考虎了固体变形对渗流参数（孔隙度和渗透率）的影响。这样。渗流就成了双孔双渗介质中非线性流固耦合渗流。在此基础上,本文还推导了双重孔隙介质非线性流固耦合渗流计算。给出了算例并作了对比。结果表明,固体变形引起的介质参数变化对流体渗流早中期过程有重要的影响,对渗流后期影响并不大。这对于石油开采有重要的参考价值。     

高温高压气体在低含水率介质中迁移的数值模拟

针对气液两相非等温渗流模型高度非线性的特点,发展了适宜的数值离散方法。根据相态转换准则和控制方程的性质,采用最低饱和度法简化算法。空间离散方面,使用有限体积法;时间离散方面,设计了一套包含合理求解顺序的Picard迭代法,解决了方程组强耦合的问题。利用上述数值方法对高温高压气体的迁移行为进行数值模拟,证明了气体在低含水率介质和等效孔隙度的干燥介质内的运动基本一致,并分析了空腔内的气液相态转变过程。在此基础上,研究了多孔介质孔隙度和渗透率对气体压强演化和示踪气体迁移的影响。研究表明,孔隙度越小（相同渗透率）、渗透率越高（相同孔隙度）,示踪气体的迁移距离越远,并给出了估算不同孔隙度和渗透率下迁移距离的半经验公式。     

INSTABILITY AND DISPERSIVITY OF WAVE PROPAGATION ININELASTIC SATURATED/UNSATURATED POROUS MEDIA

ＩｎｔｒｏｄｕｃｔｉｏｎＴｈｅｔｒａｎｓｉｅｎｔｐｈｅｎｏｍｅｎａｏｆｄｙｎａｍｉｃｐｒｏｂｌｅｍｓａｎｄｔｈｅｍａｎｎｅｒｓｔｏｔｒｅａｔｔｈｅｍａｒｅｇｅｎｅｒａｌｌｙｒｅｌａｔｅｄｔｏｔｈｅｓｐｅｃｔｒａｌｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒｉｓｔｉｃｓｏｆｅｘｃｉｔａｔｉｏｎ .Ｏｎｅｍａｙｏｍｉｔｐｒｏｐａｇａｔｉｎｇｗａｖｅｓｉｆｒｅｌａｔｉｖｅｌｙｌｏｗｅｒｆｒｅｑｕｅｎｃｉｅｓｇｏｖｅｒｎｔｈｅｒｅｓｐｏｎｓｅｓｉｎｔｈｅｐｒｏｂｌｅｍｓｓｕｃｈａｓｓｅｉｓｍｉｃｒｅｓｐｏｎｓｅｓａｎｄｒｅｓｐｏｎ…     

Numerical and experimental investigation of convective drying in unsaturated porous media with bound water

The heat and mass transfer in an unsaturated wet cylindrical porous bed packed with quartz particles was investigated theoretically for relatively low convective drying rates. Local thermodynamic equilibrium was assumed in the mathematical model describing the multi-phase flow in the unsaturated porous media using the energy and mass conservation equations to describe the heat and mass transfer during the drying. The drying model included convection and capillary transport of the free water, diffusion of bound water, and convection and diffusion of the gas. The numerical results indicated that the drying process could be divided into three periods, the temperature rise period, the constant drying rate period and the decreasing drying rate period. The numerical results agreed well with the experimental data verifying that the mathematical model can evaluate the drying performance of porous media for low drying rates. The effects of drying conditions such as the ambient temperature, the relative humidity, and the velocity of the drying air, on the drying process were evaluated by numerical solution.     

The velocity of sand particles relative to water and the variation of fluctuation velocity due to the concentration of suspended sand particles

In this paper, we discuss three fundamental problems of the theory of suspended sand particles based on the theory of fluid dynamics. They are: (1) the relative velocity of sand particles to the surrounding fluid in the turbulent flow, (2) the variation of the velocity fluctuation of the fluid when the suspended sand particles exist, (3) the profile of the vertical distribution of the concentration of the suspended sand particles in two-dimensional uniform steady channel flow and the modification of usual diffusion theory. The results of our theoretical analysis are somewhat different from the corresponding expressions in the textbooks of hydraulics and river mechanics.     

Compressibility and anisotropy effects in the processes of two-phase flow through a porous medium

Functions of the relative phase permeabilities which take into account the tensor nature of the relations between the absolute and phase permeabilities are constructed on the basis of experimental data. Problems of the displacement of gas by water and of water by gas in an orthotropic pore space are studied. The relative phase permeabilities obtained are compared with functions that depend only on the local saturation. The effect of the phase compressibility and the anisotropy of the absolute permeability tensor is considered.     

Dispersion Phenomena in Thermal Diffusion and Modelling of Thermogravitational Experiments in Porous Media

In a TIPM paper published in 1992, the authors presented a simple model of thermogravitational diffusion in packed columns (TPC). Though qualitatively in agreement with the experimental results, this model exhibited a systematic discrepancy with respect to the magnitude of the permeability of maximum separation in the TPC experiments. Here, the results of a re-examination of the classical phenomenology of irreversible thermodynamics in porous media, applied to TPC, are described. Through the interpretation of additional TPC experiments, we show that the effective thermal diffusion coefficient in TPC includes a dependency upon the fluid velocity. This dependency is consistent with a nonlinear extension of irreversible thermodynamics, and the model so amended accounts for a correct re-interpretation of the experiments.     

Experiments on Solute Transport in Aggregated Porous Media: Are Diffusions Within Aggregates and Hydrodynamic Dispersion Independent?

Two region models for solute transport in porous media assume that hydrodynamic dispersion in mobile water and solute diffusion within immobile water regions are independent. Experimental and theoretical results for transport through a macropore indicate that hydrodynamic dispersion and solute exchange are interdependent. Experiments were carried out to investigate this problem for a column packed with spherical porous aggregates. The effective diffusion coefficient of a tracer within the agreggates was determined from specific experiments. The dispersivity of the bed was determined from experiments carried out with a column filled with nonporous beads. We took advantage of the dependence of hydrodynamic dispersion on density ratios between the invading and displaced solutions to obtain a set of breakthrough curves corresponding to situations where the diffusion coefficient remains constant, whereas the dispersivity varies. Simulations reproduce correctly the experiments. Small discrepancies are noted that can be corrected either by increasing the dispersion coefficient or by fitting the external mass transfer coefficient. Increased dispersion coefficients probably reveal a modification of Taylor dispersion due to solute exchange. The fitted external mass transfer coefficients are close to the values obtained with classical correlations of the chemical engineering literature.     

Generalized Darcy's Law and the Structure of the Phase and Relative Phase Permeabilities for Two-Phase Flows through Anisotropic Porous Media

For two-phase immiscible fluid flows a generalized Darcy's law is written in invariant tensor form for crystallographic point symmetry groups and anisotropic textures. The representation of the phase permeability coefficient tensors and the structure of the expressions for the relative phase permeabilities are analyzed for all symmetry groups. The relation between the phase and absolute permeability coefficient tensors is specified by a fourth-rank tensor with the external symmetry coinciding with external symmetry of the phase permeability tensors. It is shown that the external symmetry of the phase permeability coefficient tensors can differ from the external symmetry of the absolute permeability tensor. For triclinic and monoclinic symmetry groups it is shown that the phase permeability coefficient tensors may not be coaxial with each other and with the absolute permeability tensor; moreover, the directions of the principal axes of the phase permeability coefficient tensors can depend on the saturation.     

Almost analytic solutions and their tests of the horizontal diffusion equation for the movement of water in unsaturated soil

Itisalwaysdifficulttofindthesolutionsoftheequationforthemovementofwaterinunsaturatedsoi1.Theprimar}'reasonisthatthehydraulicconductivityK(T)orthediffusivityofsoiIwaterD(o)isfunctionofwaterpotential(W)orwatercontent'(o)'Atpresent,thegeneralwaystofindthesol…     

Impacts of local dispersion and first-order decay on solute transport in randomly heterogeneous porous media

Stochastic subsurface transport theories either disregard local dispersion or take it to be constant. We offer an alternative Eulerian-Lagrangian formalism to account for both local dispersion and first-order mass removal (due to radioactive decay or biodegradation). It rests on a decomposition of the velocityv into a field-scale componentv , which is defined on the scale of measurement support, and a zero mean sub-field-scale componentv _s , which fluctuates randomly on scales smaller than. Without loss of generality, we work formally with unconditional statistics ofv _s and conditional statistics ofv . We then require that, within this (or other selected) working framework,v _s andv be mutually uncorrelated. This holds whenever the correlation scale ofv is large in comparison to that ofv _s . The formalism leads to an integro-differential equation for the conditional mean total concentration c which includes two dispersion terms, one field-scale and one sub-field-scale. It also leads to explicit expressions for conditional second moments of concentration cc. We solve the former, and evaluate the latter, for mildly fluctuatingv by means of an analytical-numerical method developed earlier by Zhang and Neuman. We present results in two-dimensional flow fields of unconditional (prior) mean uniformv . These show that the relative effect of local dispersion on first and second moments of concentration dies out locally as the corresponding dispersion tensor tends to zero. The effect also diminishes with time and source size. Our results thus do not support claims in the literature that local dispersion must always be accounted for, no matter how small it is. First-order decay reduces dispersion. This effect increases with time. However, these concentration moments c and cc of total concentrationc, which are associated with the scale below, cannot be used to estimate the field-scale concentrationc directly. To do so, a spatial average over the field measurement scale is needed. Nevertheless, our numerical results show that differences between the ensemble moments ofc and those ofc are negligible, especially for nonpoint sources, because the ensemble moments ofc are already smooth enough.     

Global existence and blow-up phenomena of classical solutions for the system of compressible adiabatic flow through porous media

By means of maximum principle for nonlinear hyperbolic systems, the results given by HSIAO Ling and D. Serre was improved for Cauchy problem of compressible adiabatic flow through porous media, and a complete result on the global existence and the blowup phenomena of classical solutions of these systems. These results show that the dissipation is strong enough to preserve the smoothness of ‘ small ‘ solution.     

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}].     

Stochastic and upscaled analytical modeling of fines migration in porous media induced by low-salinity water injection

Fines migration induced by injection of low-salinity water(LSW) into porous media can lead to severe pore plugging and consequent permeability reduction. The deepbed filtration(DBF) theory is used to model the aforementioned phenomenon, which allows us to predict the effluent concentration history and the distribution profile of entrapped particles. However, the previous models fail to consider the movement of the waterflood front. In this study, we derive a stochastic model for fines migration ...