The impact of wettability and fluid saturations on multiphase representative elementary volume estimations of micro-porous media
Abstract view|0|times PDF download|0|times
Abstract
The occurrence of multi-phase flows in porous media is a complex phenomenon that involves multiple scales, ranging from individual pores to larger continuum scales. Upscaling frameworks have emerged as a response to the need for addressing the disparity between micro-scale processes and macroscopic modelling. Determination of the representative elementary volume is important for understanding fluid dynamics in micro-porous materials. The size of the representative elementary volume for multiphase flow in porous media is significantly affected by wettability and fluid saturations. Previous studies have overlooked this aspect by conducting simulations under conditions of constant medium wettability and fluid saturations. This study uses finite volume simulations with a volume of fluid approach for two distinct asymptotic homogenization methods, namely hydrodynamic bounds of relative permeability and thermodynamic bounds of entropy production. Strong wetting conditions with high wetting phase saturation were found to require a smaller sample size to establish representative elementary volume, while mixed-wettability scenarios necessitate the largest sample sizes. These findings improve our understanding of multiphase fluid flow behaviour in micro-porous materials and aid in enhancing techniques for scaling up observations and predictive modelling in engineering and environmental fields.
Document Type: Short communication
Cited as: Hussain, S. T., Regenauer-Lieb, K., Zhuravljov, A., Hussain, F., Rahman, S. S. The impact of wettability and fluid saturations on multiphase representative elementary volume estimations of micro-porous media. Capillarity, 2023, 9(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.46690/capi.2023.10.01
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Alpak, F. O., Berg, S., Zacharoudiou, I. Prediction of fluid topology and relative permeability in imbibition in sandstone rock by direct numerical simulation. Advances in Water Resources, 2018, 122: 49-59.
Bear, J. Dynamics of fluids in porous media. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 1973, 61(1): 206-208.
Bultreys, T., De Boever, W., Cnudde, V. Imaging and imagebased fluid transport modeling at the pore scale in geological materials: A practical introduction to the current state-of-the-art. Earth-Science Reviews, 2016, 155: 93-128.
Costanza-Robinson, M. S., Estabrook, B. D., Fouhey, D. F. Representative elementary volume estimation for porosity, moisture saturation, and air-water interfacial areas in unsaturated porous media: Data quality implications. Water Resources Research, 2011, 47(7): W07513.
Deshpande, S. S., Anumolu, L., Trujillo, M. F. Evaluating the performance of the two-phase flow solver interFoam. Computational Science & Discovery, 2012, 5(1): 014016.
Gray, W. G., Miller, C. T. Introduction to the Thermodynamically Constrained Averaging Theory for Porous Medium Systems. Cham, Switzerland, Springer Cham, 2014.
Greenshields, C. OpenFOAM v10 User Guide. 2022. Guadagnini, A., Blunt, M. J., Riva, M., et al. Statistical scaling of geometric characteristics in millimeter scale natural porous media. Transport in Porous Media, 2014, 101(3): 465-475.
Huang, R., Herring, A. L., Sheppard, A. Effect of saturation and image resolution on representative elementary volume and topological quantification: An experimental study on bentheimer sandstone using micro-CT. Transport in Porous Media, 2021, 137: 489-518.
Hussain, S. T., Rahman, S. S., Azim, R. A., et al. Multiphase fluid flow through fractured porous media supported by iInnovative laboratory and numerical methods for estimating relative permeability. Energy & Fuels, 2021, 35(21): 17372-17388.
Hussain, S. T., Regenauer-Lieb, K., Zhuravljov, A., et al. Asymptotic hydrodynamic homogenization and thermodynamic bounds for upscaling multiphase flow in porous media. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2023, 9(1): 38-53.
Icardi, M., Boccardo, G., Tempone, R. On the predictivity of pore-scale simulations: Estimating uncertainties with multilevel Monte Carlo. Advances in Water Resources, 2016, 95: 46-60.
Jackson, S. J., Lin, Q., Krevor, S. Representative elementary volumes, hysteresis, and heterogeneity in multiphase flow from the pore to continuum scale. Water Resources Research, 2020, 56: e2019WR026396.
Jahanbakhsh, A., Wlodarczyk, K. L., Hand, D. P., et al. Review of microfluidic devices and imaging techniques for fluid flow study in porous geomaterials. Sensors, 2020, 20(14): 4030.
Janetti, E. B., Riva, M., Guadagnini, A. Effects of pore- Scale geometry and wettability on two-Phase relative permeabilities within elementary cells. Water, 2017, 9(4): 252.
Kjelstrup, S., Bedeaux, D., Hansen, A., et al. Non-isothermal transport of multi-phase fluids in porous media. The entropy production. Frontiers in Physics, 2018, 6: 126.
Lanetc, Z., Zhuravljov, A., Jing, Y., et al. Coupling of pore network modelling and volume of fluid methods for multiphase flow in fractured media. Fuel, 2022, 319: 123563.
Liu, T., Jin, X., Wang, M. Critical resolution and sample size of digital rock analysis for unconventional reservoirs. Energies, 2018, 11(7): 1798.
Liu, J., Regenauer-Lieb, K. Application of percolation theory to microtomography of rocks. Earth-Science Reviews, 2021, 214: 103519.
Liu, T., Wang, M. Critical REV size of multiphase flow in porous media for upscaling by pore-scale modeling. Transport in Porous Media, 2022, 144(1): 111-132.
Liu, T., Zhang, S., Wang, M. Does rheology of bingham fluid influence upscaling of flow through tight porous media? Energies, 2021, 14(3): 680.
Mahmud, W. M. Impact of salinity and temperature variations on relative permeability and residual oil saturation in neutral-wet sandstone. Capillarity, 2022, 5(2): 23-31.
Mostaghimi, P., Blunt, M. J., Bijeljic, B. Computations of absolute permeability on micro-CT images. Mathematical Geosciences, 2013, 45: 103-125.
Moukalled, F., Mangani, L., Darwish, M. The Finite Volume Method in Computational Fluid Dynamics: An Advanced Introduction with OpenFOAM® and Matlab. Cham, Switzerland, Springer Cham, 2016.
Patankar, S. Numerical Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow. Boca Raton, USA, CRC Press, 2018.
Pirzada, M. A., Zoorabadi, M., Lamei Ramandi, H., et al. CO2 sorption induced damage in coals in unconfined and confined stress states: A micrometer to core scale investigation. International Journal of Coal Geology, 2018, 198: 167-176.
Porta, G., Chaynikov, S., Riva, M., et al. Upscaling solute transport in porous media from the pore scale to dualand multicontinuum formulations: Upscaling solute transport to dual continuum formulation. Water Resources Research, 2013, 49(4): 2025-2039.
Regenauer-Lieb, K., Karrech, A., Chua, H., et al. Entropic bounds for multi-scale and multi-physics coupling in earth sciences, in Beyond the Second Law. edited by R. C. Dewar, C. H. Lineweaver, R. K. Niven, et al. Springer, Berlin, pp. 323-335, 2014.
Shapoval, A., Alzahrani, M., Xue, W., et al. Oil-water interactions in porous media during fluid displacement: Effect of potential determining ions (PDI) on the formation of in-situ emulsions and oil recovery. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 2022, 210: 110079.
Singh, A., Regenauer-Lieb, K., Walsh, S. D. C., et al. On representative elementary volumes of grayscale micro-CT images of porous media. Geophysical Research Letters, 2020, 47(15): e2020GL088594.
Werth, C. J., Zhang, C., Brusseau, M. L., et al. A review of non-invasive imaging methods and applications in contaminant hydrogeology research. Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, 2010, 113(1-4): 1-24.
Xiao, Y., He, Y., Zheng, J., et al. Modeling of two-phase flow in heterogeneous wet porous media. Capillarity, 2022, 5(3): 41-50.
Zhao, B., MacMinn, C. W., Primkulov, B. K., et al. Comprehensive comparison of pore-scale models for multiphase flow in porous media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019, 116(28): 13799-13806.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2023 The Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.