Experimental and Numerical Study of Pore-Scale Multi-Phase Flow Dynamics

Abstract:

Understanding multiphase fluid flow is critical for many applications, including CO2 sequestration, bioremediation, and oil recovery. Micro-fluidic experiments and pore-scale simulations become important tools in studying multiphase flow in porous media. At the same time, many pore-scale numerical models lack rigorous validation and verification, and micro-fluidic experiments are hard to reproduce due to physical instabilities and challenges in precisely controlling the experiments.
We performed a set of microcell experiments and determined conditions necessary to obtain reproducible pore-scale evolution of the fluid-fluid interfaces during both infiltration and drainage phases.
Next, we modeled the experiments using Finite Volume and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics codes. The point-by-point comparison of the experimental results and numerical simulations revealed advantages and disadvantages of these two methods in capturing the overall behavior and pore-scale phenomena, including residual saturations, formation of thin films, fluid bridges and various fluid trapping mechanisms.