Dissipative particle dynamics simulation of fluid motion through an unsaturated fracture and fracture junction

Journal Article · Thu Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Journal of Computational Physics

OSTI ID:20991561

Moubin, Liu ^[1]; Meakin, Paul ^[2]; Hai, Huang ^[2]

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1. Center for Advanced Modeling and Simulation, Idaho National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, MS 2211, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2211 (United States) and College of Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798 (Singapore)
2. Center for Advanced Modeling and Simulation, Idaho National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, MS 2211, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2211 (United States)

Multiphase fluid motion in unsaturated fractures and fracture networks involves complicated fluid dynamics, which is difficult to model using grid-based continuum methods. In this paper, the application of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), a relatively new mesoscale method to simulate fluid motion in unsaturated fractures is described. Unlike the conventional DPD method that employs a purely repulsive conservative (non-dissipative) particle-particle interaction to simulate the behavior of gases, we used conservative particle-particle interactions that combine short-range repulsive and long-range attractive interactions. This new conservative particle-particle interaction allows the behavior of multiphase systems consisting of gases, liquids and solids to be simulated. Our simulation results demonstrate that, for a fracture with flat parallel walls, the DPD method with the new interaction potential function is able to reproduce the hydrodynamic behavior of fully saturated flow, and various unsaturated flow modes including thin film flow, wetting and non-wetting flow. During simulations of flow through a fracture junction, the fracture junction can be fully or partially saturated depending on the wetting property of the fluid, the injection rate and the geometry of the fracture junction. Flow mode switching from a fully saturated flow to a thin film flow can also be observed in the fracture junction.

• OSTI ID: 20991561
• Journal Information: Journal of Computational Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Computational Physics Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 222; ISSN JCTPAH; ISSN 0021-9991
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
FRACTURES
GASES
GEOMETRY
HYDRODYNAMICS
LIQUIDS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PARTICLE INTERACTIONS
SOLIDS
THIN FILMS
WEIGHTING FUNCTIONS