Steady-state Two-phase Flow in Porous Media: Statistics and Transport Properties

Ken Tore Tallakstad (1) , Henning Arendt Knudsen (1) , Thomas Ramstad (2) , Grunde Løvoll (1) , Knut Jørgen Måløy (1) , Renaud Toussaint (3) , Eirik Grude Flekkøy (4)

1 Department of Physics [Oslo]
2 Physics NTNU - Department of Physics [Trondheim]
3 IPGS - Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg
4 PoreLab [Oslo]

We study experimentally the case of steady-state simultaneous two-phase flow in a quasi two-dimensional porous medium. The dynamics is dominated by the interplay between a viscous pressure field from the wetting fluid and bubble transport of a less viscous, nonwetting phase. In contrast to more studied displacement front systems, steady-state flow is in equilibrium, statistically speaking. The corresponding theoretical simplicity allows us to explain a data collapse in the cluster size distribution as well as the relation |∇P | ∝ √ Ca between the pressure gradient in the system and the capillary number

Domains: Physics [physics]; Mechanics [physics]; Condensed Matter [cond-mat]; Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; Hydrology

Ken Tore Tallakstad, Henning Arendt Knudsen, Thomas Ramstad, Grunde Løvoll, Knut Jørgen Måløy, et al.. Steady-state Two-phase Flow in Porous Media: Statistics and Transport Properties. Physical Review Letters, 2009, 102 (7), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.074502⟩. ⟨insu-02377830⟩