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Title: Pore Level Modeling of Immiscible Drainage: Validation in the Invasion Percolation and DLA Limits

Journal Article · · Physica. A

Motivated by a wide-range of applications from ground water remediation to carbon dioxide sequestration and by difficulties in reconciling experiments with previous modeling, we have developed a pore-level model of two-phase flow in porous media. We have attempted to make our model as physical and as reliable as possible, incorporating both capillary effects and viscous effects. After a detailed discussion of the model, we validate it in the very different limits of zero capillary number and zero-viscosity ratio. Invasion percolation (IP) models the flow in the limit of zero capillary number; results from our model show detailed agreement with results from IP, for small capillary numbers. Diffusion limited aggregation (DLA) models the flow in the limit of zero-viscosity ratio; flow patterns from our model have the same fractal dimension as patterns from DLA for small viscosity ratios.

Research Organization:
National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE - Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
DOE Contract Number:
None cited
OSTI ID:
924739
Report Number(s):
DOE/NETL-IR-2003-063; TRN: US200809%%333
Journal Information:
Physica. A, Vol. 319; ISSN 0378-4371
Publisher:
Elsevier Science B.V.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English