An abstract for a minisymposium talk at Interpore 2018

From Pore to Porous Media: A Connected Hierarchy of Chaos

Guy Metcalfe, Daniel Lester, Mike Trefry


Chaotic advection is inherent to flow through all types of porous
media, from granular and packed media to fractured and open networks.
The mechanisms to generate chaotic flow differ and interact across
scales and levels of model.  At the pore scale, the topological
complexity inherent to all porous media generates fluid deformation
local to stagnation points to impart the stretching and folding to
generate chaotic trajectories.  The difference between 2D and 3D media
is crucial for anomalous transport and descriptions of
macrodispersion.  At the Darcy scale, averaging over the pore
architecture, the variance of heterogeneity in a setting of
time-dependent forcing generates saddle connections.  The ubiquitous
nature of chaotic advection has significant implications for the
description of transport, mixing, chemical reaction and biological
activity in porous media.  The talk will cover recent theoretical
developments and experimental confirmations.