The hysteretic relationship between capillary pressure (Pc) on saturation (S) has been shown to be a projection of a higher-dimensional surface that depends on interfacial area per volume (IAV) as the additional state variable. Most studies that validate the capillary-pressure–saturation-IAV relationship are performed on 2D micro-models or cores where scanning is performed in pressure and not...
In their seminal work, Saffman and Taylor showed that the displacement of a more viscous fluid by a less viscous one in a Hele-Shaw cell, as an analogue porous medium, leads to an interfacial instability. This description, however, neglects the inherent disorder in porous media, as well as the non-hydrodynamic interactions between the fluids with the solid surfaces. Here, we revisit the...
Current thermal methods for bitumen recovery are effective but require both environmental and economic performance improvements. Solvent based recovery method is an alternative to steam injection that has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with recovery. However, the pore-scale behavior of the solvent-bitumen system is very complex and poorly characterized to date. In...
In an effort in evaluating the effectiveness of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques and geologic carbon storage (GCS), significant interest is recently growing in using microfluidic experiments. On the other hand, because solving the Navier-Stokes equation at complex pore geometry of natural porous media requires extensive computational resource and time, simulation techniques in simplified...
