InterPore2022

Viscous, gravitational and capillary forces in 3D experiments with a synthetic porous media

1 Jun 2022, 11:30

15m

Oral Presentation (MS06-A) Physics of multiphase flow in diverse porous media MS06-A

Speaker

Joachim Falck Brodin (PoreLab, Physics Dept., The University of Oslo)

Description

We explore the interplay between viscous, gravitational, and capillary forces in flow in porous media, using two different boundary conditions and employing our unique 3D-scanner, based on optical index matching [1]. Our findings are considered in comparison with experiments on 2D systems, investigating how the transitions between flow regimes can be captured by a dimensionless fluctuation number, as described in [2,3]. In both cases we look at a more viscous, more dense fluid invading a less viscous, less dense one from above. Gravity here destabilizes the invasion, but this is countered by the viscous pressure drop in the invading fluid. We capture the transition, as a function of flow rate, and find a crossover at F = 0 between viscosity-stabilized and gravity-unstable invasion. In the first case (Figure 1), we inject from a point high in a sealed cell, with an outlet at a constant pressure at the bottom. We observe a stabilized, dense invasion body near the inlet, with increasing size and a well-defined spheroid shape as we increase the flow rate. The flow transitions to unstable fingering at a radius corresponding to F = 0. In the second case, we present ongoing experiments with the same fluid pair, with the more viscous, more dense fluid now invading from above with a front initialized spanning the full cell cross section. We measure a front width that is a function of the flow rate and investigate if we also here can find a crossover at F = 0.

References

[1] J. F. Brodin, M. Moura, R. Toussaint, K. J. Måløy and P. A. Rikvold “Visualization by optical fluorescence of two-phase flow in a three-dimensional porous medium”, arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.02118 (2020).
[2] H. Auradou, K. J. Måløy, J. Schmittbuhl, A. Hansen, and D. Bideau, “Competition between correlated buoyancy and uncorrelated capillary effects during drainage," Phys. Rev. E 60, 7224 (1999).
[3] Y. Meheust, G. Løvoll, K. J. Måløy, and J. Schmittbuhl, “Interface scaling in a two-dimensional porous medium under combined viscous, gravity, and capillary effects," Phys. Rev. E 66, 051603 (2002).

Presentation materials

Abstract-Interpore-2022.docx