Experimentally Determined Interfacial Area Between Immiscible Fluids in Porous Media
When multiple fluids flow through a porous medium, the interaction between the fluid interfaces can be of great importance. While this is widely recognized in practical applications, numerical models often disregard interactios between discrete fluid phases due to the computational complexity. And rightly so, for this level of detail is well beyond most extended Darcy Law relationships. A new model of two-phase flow including the interfacial area has been proposed by Hassarizadeh and Gray based upon thermodynamic principles. A version of this general equation set has been implemented by Nessner and Hassarizadeh. Many of the interfacial parameters required by this equation set have never been determined from experiments. The work presented here is a description of how the interfacial area, capillary pressure, interfacial velocity and interfacial permeability from two-phase flow experiments in porous media experiments can be used to determine the required parameters. This work, while on-going, has shown the possibility of digitizing images within translucent porous media and identifying the location and behavior of interfaces under dynamic conditions. Using the described methods experimentally derived interfacial functions to be used in larger scale simulations are currently being developed. In summary, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) by mapping a pore-throat geometry onto an image of immiscible fluid flow, the saturation of fluids and the individual interfaces between the fluids can be identified; (2) the resulting saturation profiles of the low velocity drainage flows used in this study are well described by an invasion percolation fractal scaling; (3) the interfacial area between fluids has been observed to increase in a linear fashion during the initial invasion of the non-wetting fluid; and (4) the average capillary pressure within the entire cell and representative elemental volumes were observed to plateau after a small portion of the volume was invaded.
- Research Organization:
- National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, and Morgantown, WV (United States). In-house Research
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy (FE)
- OSTI ID:
- 1013386
- Report Number(s):
- NETL-TPR2204; TRN: US201110%%511
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Gordon Conference: Flow and Transporot in Permeable Media, July 13-18, 2008, Magdalen College in Oxford, UK
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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