Singular Limit and Homogenization for Flame Propagation in Periodic Excitable Media

This paper is concerned with a class of singular equations modelling the combustion of premixed gases in periodic media. The model involves two parameters: the period of the medium |L| and a singular parameter related to the activation energy. The existence of pulsating travelling fronts for fixed and |L| was proved by Berestycki & Hamel in [BH]. In the present paper, we investigate the behaviour of such solutions when More precisely, we establish that pulsating travelling fronts behave like travelling waves, when the period |L| is small and . We also study the convergence of the solution, as goes to zero (and |L| is fixed), toward a solution of a free boundary problem.     

Bounded Correctors in Almost Periodic Homogenization

We show that certain linear elliptic equations (and systems) in divergence form with almost periodic coefficients have bounded, almost periodic correctors. This is proved under a new condition we introduce which quantifies the almost periodic assumption and includes (but is not restricted to) the class of smooth, quasiperiodic coefficient fields which satisfy a Diophantine-type condition previously considered by Kozlov (Mat Sb (N.S), 107(149):199–217, 1978). The proof is based on a quantitative ergodic theorem for almost periodic functions combined with the new regularity theory recently introduced by Armstrong and Shen (Pure Appl Math, 2016) for equations with almost periodic coefficients. This yields control on spatial averages of the gradient of the corrector, which is converted into estimates on the size of the corrector itself via a multiscale Poincaré-type inequality.     

Two-Phase Flow in Heterogeneous Porous Media with Non-Wetting Phase Trapping

This article presents a mathematical model describing flow of two fluid phases in a heterogeneous porous medium. The medium contains disconnected inclusions embedded in the background material. The background material is characterized by higher value of the non-wetting-phase entry pressure than the inclusions, which causes non-standard behavior of the medium at the macroscopic scale. During the displacement of the non-wetting fluid by the wetting one, some portions of the non-wetting fluid become trapped in the inclusions. On the other hand, if the medium is initially saturated with the wetting phase, it starts to drain only after the capillary pressure exceeds the entry pressure of the background material. These effects cannot be represented by standard upscaling approaches based on the assumption of local equilibrium of the capillary pressure. We propose a relevant modification of the upscaled model obtained by asymptotic homogenization. The modification concerns the form of flow equations and the calculation of the effective hydraulic functions. This approach is illustrated with two numerical examples concerning oil–water and CO₂–brine flow, respectively.     

Homogenization of Periodic Systems with Large Potentials

We consider the homogenization of a system of second-order equations with a large potential in a periodic medium. Denoting by the period, the potential is scaled as ^–2. Under a generic assumption on the spectral properties of the associated cell problem, we prove that the solution can be approximately factorized as the product of a fast oscillating cell eigenfunction and of a slowly varying solution of a scalar second-order equation. This result applies to various types of equations such as parabolic, hyperbolic or eigenvalue problems, as well as fourth-order plate equation. We also prove that, for well-prepared initial data concentrating at the bottom of a Bloch band, the resulting homogenized tensor depends on the chosen Bloch band. Our method is based on a combination of classical homogenization techniques (two-scale convergence and suitable oscillating test functions) and of Bloch waves decomposition.     

Periodic Homogenization and Material Symmetry in Linear Elasticity

Here homogenization theory is used to establish a connection between the symmetries of a periodic elastic structure associated with the microscopic properties of an elastic material and the material symmetries of the effective, macroscopic elasticity tensor. Previous results of this type exist but here more general symmetries on the microscale are considered. Using an explicit example, we show that it is possible for a material to be fully anisotropic on the microscale and yet the symmetry group on the macroscale can contain elements other than plus or minus the identity. Another example demonstrates that not all material symmetries of the macroscopic elastic tensor are generated by symmetries of the periodic elastic structure.     

Modeling the Chlorides Transport in Cementitious Materials By Periodic Homogenization

In this work, we develop a macroscopic model for diffusion–migration of ionic species in saturated porous media, based on periodic homogenization. The prior application is chloride transport in cementitious materials. The dimensional analysis of Nernst–Planck equation lets appear dimensionless numbers characterizing the ionic transfer in porous media. Using experimental data, these dimensionless numbers are linked to the perturbation parameter ${\varepsilon}$ . For a weak-imposed electrical field, or in natural diffusion, the asymptotic expansion of Nernst–Planck equation leads to a macroscopic model coupling diffusion and migration at the same order. The expression of the homogenized diffusion coefficient only involves the geometrical properties of the material microstructure. Then, parametric simulations are performed to compute the chloride diffusion coefficient through different complexity of the elementary cell to go on as close as possible to experimental diffusion coefficient of the two cement pastes tested.     

Some Inverse Problems in Periodic Homogenization of Hamilton-Jacobi Equations

We look at the effective Hamiltonian \({\overline{H}}\) associated with the Hamiltonian \({H(p,x)=H(p)+V(x)}\) in the periodic homogenization theory. Our central goal is to understand the relation between \({V}\) and \({\overline{H}}\). We formulate some inverse problems concerning this relation. Such types of inverse problems are, in general, very challenging. In this paper, we discuss several special cases in both convex and nonconvex settings.     

Multiscale Young Measures in almost Periodic Homogenization and Applications

We prove the existence of multiscale Young measures associated with almost periodic homogenization. We give applications of this tool in the homogenization of nonlinear partial differential equations with an almost periodic structure, such as scalar conservation laws, nonlinear transport equations, Hamilton–Jacobi equations and fully nonlinear elliptic equations. Motivated by the application in nonlinear transport equations, we also prove basic results on flows generated by Lipschitz almost periodic vector fields, which are of interest in their own. In our analysis, an important role is played by the so-called Bohr compactification of ; this is a natural parameter space for the Young measures. Our homogenization results provide also the asymptotic behavior for the whole set of -translates of the solutions, which is in the spirit of recent studies on the homogenization of stationary ergodic processes.     

Homogenization of Wall-Slip Gas Flow Through Porous Media

The permeability of reservoir rocks is most commonly measured with an atmospheric gas. Permeability is greater for a gas than for a liquid. The Klinkenberg equation gives a semi-empirical relation between the liquid and gas permeabilities. In this paper, the wall-slip gas flow problem is homogenized. This problem is described by the steady state, low velocity Navier–Stokes equations for a compressible gas with a small Knudsen number. Darcy's law with a permeability tensor equal to that of liquid flow is shown to be valid to the lowest order. The lowest order wall-slip correction is a local tensorial form of the Klinkenberg equation. The Klinkenberg permeability is a positive tensor. It is in general not symmetric, but may under some conditions, which we specify, be symmetric. Our result reduces to the Klinkenberg equation for constant viscosity gas flow in isotropic media.     

Foam Mobility in Heterogeneous Porous Media

It is shown experimentally that in situ generation of foam is an effective method for achieving gas mobility control and diverting injected fluid to low permeability strata within heterogeneous porous media. The experimental system is composed of a 0.395 porosity, 5.35 µm² synthetic sandstone and a 0.244 porosity, 0.686 µm² natural sandstone. The cores are arranged in parallel and communicate through common injection and production conditions. Nitrogen is the gas phase and alpha-olefin sulfonate (AOS 1416) in brine is the foamer. Three types of experiments were conducted. First, gas alone was injected into the system after presaturation with the foamer solution. Second, gas and foamer solution were coinjected at an overall gas fraction of 90% into cores presaturated with surfactant. Each core accepted a portion of the injected gas and liquid according to the mobility within the core. Lastly, gas and foamer solution were coinjected into the individual, isolated porous media in order to establish baseline behavior. The results are striking. It is possible to achieve total diversion of gas injection to the low permeability medium in some cases. The results also confirm previous predictions that foamed gas can be more mobile in lower permeability porous media.     

Quasicontinuum Models of Dynamic Phase Transitions

We propose a series of quasicontinuum approximations for the simplest lattice model of a fully dynamic martensitic phase transition in one dimension. The approximations are dispersive and include various non-classical corrections to both kinetic and potential energies. We show that the well-posed quasicontinuum theory can be constructed in such a way that the associated closed-form kinetic relation is in an excellent agreement with the predictions of the discrete theory.     

Modelling Imbibition Processes in Heterogeneous Porous Media

Transport in Porous Media - Imbibition is a commonly encountered multiphase problem in various fields, and exact prediction of imbibition processes is a key issue for better understanding capillary...     

Homogenization of the Spectral Problem for Periodic Elliptic Operators with Sign-Changing Density Function

The paper deals with the asymptotic behaviour of spectra of second order self-adjoint elliptic operators with periodic rapidly oscillating coefficients in the case when the density function (the factor on the spectral parameter) changes sign. We study the Dirichlet problem in a regular bounded domain and show that the spectrum of this problem is discrete and consists of two series, one of them tending towards +∞ and another towards −∞. The asymptotic behaviour of positive and negative eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenfunctions depends crucially on whether the average of the weight function is positive, negative or equal to zero. We construct the asymptotics of eigenpairs in all three cases.     

Steady-State Source Flow in Heterogeneous Porous Media

The flow of fluids in heterogeneous porous media is modelled by regarding the hydraulic conductivity as a stationary random space function. The flow variables, the pressure head and velocity field are random functions as well and we are interested primarily in calculating their mean values. The latter had been intensively studied in the past for flows uniform in the average. It has been shown that the average Darcy's law, which relates the mean pressure head gradient to the mean velocity, is given by a local linear relationship. As a result, the mean head and velocity satisfy the local flow equations in a fictitious homogeneous medium of effective conductivity. However, recent analysis has shown that for nonuniform flows the effective Darcy's law is determined by a nonlocal relationship of a convolution type. Hence, the average flow equations for the mean head are expressed as a linear integro-differential operator. Due to the linearity of the problem, it is useful to derive the mean head distribution for a flow by a source of unit discharge. This distribution represents a fundamental solution of the average flow equations and is called the mean Green function G _d (x). The mean head G _d(x) is derived here at first order in the logconductivity variance for an arbitrary correlation function (x) and for any dimensionality d of the flow. It is obtained as a product of the solution G _d ⁽⁰⁾(x) for source flow in unbounded domain of the mean conductivity K _A and the correction _d (x) which depends on the medium heterogeneous structure. The correction _d is evaluated for a few cases of interest.Simple one-quadrature expressions of _d are derived for isotropic two- and three-dimensional media. The quadratures can be calculated analytically after specifying (x) and closed form expressions are derived for exponential and Gaussian correlations. The flow toward a source in a three-dimensional heterogeneous medium of axisymmetric anisotropy is studied in detail by deriving ₃ as function of the distance from the source x and of the azimuthal angle . Its dependence on x, on the particular (x) and on the anisotropy ratio is illustrated in the plane of isotropy (=0) and along the anisotropy axis ( = /2).The head factor k ^* is defined as a ratio of the head in the homogeneous medium to the mean head, k ^*=G _d ⁽⁰⁾/G _d= _d ^–1. It is shown that for isotropic conductivity and for any dimensionality of the flow the medium behaves as a one-dimensional and as an effective one close and far from the source, respectively, that is, lim _x0 k ^*(x) = K _H/K _A and lim _x k ^*(x) = K ^efu/K _A, where K _A and K _H are the arithmetic and harmonic conductivity means and K ^efu is the effective conductivity for uniform flow. For axisymmetric heterogeneity the far-distance limit depends on the direction. Thus, in the coordinate system of (x) principal directions the limit values of k ^* are obtained as . These values differ from the corresponding components of the effective conductivities tensor for uniform flow for = 0 and /2, respectively. The results of the study are applied to solving the problem of the dipole well flow. The dependence of the mean head drop between the injection and production chambers on the anisotropy of the conductivity and the distance between the chambers is analyzed.     

Immiscible Displacement in Cross-Bedded Heterogeneous Porous Media

Direct insight into the mechanisms of flow and displacements within small-scale (cm) systems having permeability heterogeneities that are not parallel to the flow direction (cross-bedding and fault zones) have been carried out. In our experiments, we have used visual models with unconsolidated glass bead packs having carefully controlled permeability contrasts to observe the processes with coloured fluids and streamlines. The displacements were followed visually and by video recording for later analysis. The experiments show the significance that heterogeneities have on residual saturations and recovery, as well as the displacement patterns themselves. During a waterflood, high permeability regions can be by-passed due to capillary pressure differences, giving rise to high residual oil saturations in these regions. This study demonstrates the importance of incorporating reservoir heterogeneity into core displacement analysis, but of course the nature of the heterogeneity has to be known. In general, the effects created by the heterogeneities and their unknown boundaries hamper interpretation of flood experiments in heterogeneous real sandstone cores. Our experiments, therefore, offer clear visual information to provide a firmer understanding of the displacement processes during immiscible displacement, to present benchmark data for input to numerical simulators, and to validate the simulator through a comparison with our experimental results for these difficult flow problems.     

Nonlinear Two-Phase Mixing in Heterogeneous Porous Media

For a two-phase immiscible flow through a heterogeneous porous medium in gravity field but with neglected capillary pressure, a macroscale model of first order is derived by a two-scale homogenization method while capturing the effect of fluid mixing. The mixing is manifested in the form of a nonlinear hydrodynamic dispersion and a transport velocity shift. The dispersion tensor is shown to be a nonlinear function of saturation. In the case offlow without gravity this function is proportional to the fractional flow derivative and depends on the viscosity ratio. For a flow which is one dimensional at the macroscale, the dispersion operator remains three dimensional and can be calculated in an analytical way. In the case of gravity induced flow, the longitudinal dispersion as the function of saturation is negative within some interval of saturation values. Numerical simulations of the microscale problemjustify the theoretical results of homogenization.     

Chirality Transitions in Frustrated Ferromagnetic Spin Chains: A Link with the Gradient Theory of Phase Transitions

We study chirality transitions in frustrated ferromagnetic spin chains, in view of a possible connection with the theory of Liquid Crystals. A variational approach to the study of these systems has been recently proposed by Cicalese and Solombrino, focusing close to the helimagnet/ferromagnet transition point corresponding to the critical value of the frustration parameter \(\alpha=4\). We reformulate this problem for any \(\alpha\geq0\) in the framework of surface energies in nonconvex discrete systems with nearest neighbours ferromagnetic and next-to-nearest neighbours antiferromagnetic interactions and we link it to the gradient theory of phase transitions, by showing a uniform equivalence by \(\varGamma \)-convergence on \([0,4]\) with Modica-Mortola type functionals.     

Stored Energy Functions for Phase Transitions in Crystals

A method is presented to construct nonconvex free energies that are invariant under a symmetry group. Algebraic and geometric methods are used to determine invariant functions with the right location of minimizers. The methods are illustrated for symmetry-breaking martensitic phase transformations. Computer algebra is used to compute a basis of the corresponding class of invariant functions. Several phase transitions, such as cubic-to-orthorhombic, are discussed. An explicit example of an energy for the cubic-to-tetragonal phase transition is given.