Details
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 264-275 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Advances in water resources |
| Volume | 95 |
| Publication status | Published - 5 Aug 2016 |
Abstract
The spatial distribution of fluid phases and the geometry of fluid–fluid interfaces resulting from immiscible displacement in fractures cast decisive influence on a range of macroscopic flow parameters. Most importantly, these are the relative permeabilities of the fluids as well as the macroscopic irreducible saturations. They also influence parameters for component (solute) transport, as it usually occurs through one of the fluid phase only. Here, we present a numerical investigation on the critical role of aperture variation and spatial correlation on fluid trapping and the morphology of fluid phase distributions in a geological fracture. We consider drainage in the capillary dominated regime. The correlation scale, that is, the scale over which the two facing fracture walls are matched, varies among the investigated geometries between L/256 and L (self-affine fields), L being the domain/fracture length. The aperture variability is quantified by the coefficient of variation (δ), ranging among the various geometries from 0.05 to 0.25. We use an invasion percolation based model which has been shown to properly reproduce displacement patterns observed in previous experiments. We present a quantitative analysis of the size distribution of trapped fluid clusters. We show that when the in-plane curvature is considered, the amount of trapped fluid mass first increases with increasing correlation scale Lc and then decreases as Lc further increases from some intermediate scale towards the domain length scale L. The in-plane curvature contributes to smoothening the invasion front and to dampening the entrapment of fluid clusters of a certain size range that depends on the combination of random aperture standard deviation and spatial correlation.
Keywords
- Curvature, Drainage, Fluid trapping, Fracture, Invasion percolation, Two-phase flow
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Science(all)
- Water Science and Technology
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In: Advances in water resources, Vol. 95, 05.08.2016, p. 264-275.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Fluid trapping during capillary displacement in fractures
AU - Yang, Zhibing
AU - Neuweiler, Insa
AU - Méheust, Yves
AU - Fagerlund, Fritjof
AU - Niemi, Auli
N1 - Funding information: Financial support for this work was provided by the Swedish Research Council (VR) International Postdoc Program (No. 637-2014-445) and the EU FP7 project PANACEA (No. 282900).
PY - 2016/8/5
Y1 - 2016/8/5
N2 - The spatial distribution of fluid phases and the geometry of fluid–fluid interfaces resulting from immiscible displacement in fractures cast decisive influence on a range of macroscopic flow parameters. Most importantly, these are the relative permeabilities of the fluids as well as the macroscopic irreducible saturations. They also influence parameters for component (solute) transport, as it usually occurs through one of the fluid phase only. Here, we present a numerical investigation on the critical role of aperture variation and spatial correlation on fluid trapping and the morphology of fluid phase distributions in a geological fracture. We consider drainage in the capillary dominated regime. The correlation scale, that is, the scale over which the two facing fracture walls are matched, varies among the investigated geometries between L/256 and L (self-affine fields), L being the domain/fracture length. The aperture variability is quantified by the coefficient of variation (δ), ranging among the various geometries from 0.05 to 0.25. We use an invasion percolation based model which has been shown to properly reproduce displacement patterns observed in previous experiments. We present a quantitative analysis of the size distribution of trapped fluid clusters. We show that when the in-plane curvature is considered, the amount of trapped fluid mass first increases with increasing correlation scale Lc and then decreases as Lc further increases from some intermediate scale towards the domain length scale L. The in-plane curvature contributes to smoothening the invasion front and to dampening the entrapment of fluid clusters of a certain size range that depends on the combination of random aperture standard deviation and spatial correlation.
AB - The spatial distribution of fluid phases and the geometry of fluid–fluid interfaces resulting from immiscible displacement in fractures cast decisive influence on a range of macroscopic flow parameters. Most importantly, these are the relative permeabilities of the fluids as well as the macroscopic irreducible saturations. They also influence parameters for component (solute) transport, as it usually occurs through one of the fluid phase only. Here, we present a numerical investigation on the critical role of aperture variation and spatial correlation on fluid trapping and the morphology of fluid phase distributions in a geological fracture. We consider drainage in the capillary dominated regime. The correlation scale, that is, the scale over which the two facing fracture walls are matched, varies among the investigated geometries between L/256 and L (self-affine fields), L being the domain/fracture length. The aperture variability is quantified by the coefficient of variation (δ), ranging among the various geometries from 0.05 to 0.25. We use an invasion percolation based model which has been shown to properly reproduce displacement patterns observed in previous experiments. We present a quantitative analysis of the size distribution of trapped fluid clusters. We show that when the in-plane curvature is considered, the amount of trapped fluid mass first increases with increasing correlation scale Lc and then decreases as Lc further increases from some intermediate scale towards the domain length scale L. The in-plane curvature contributes to smoothening the invasion front and to dampening the entrapment of fluid clusters of a certain size range that depends on the combination of random aperture standard deviation and spatial correlation.
KW - Curvature
KW - Drainage
KW - Fluid trapping
KW - Fracture
KW - Invasion percolation
KW - Two-phase flow
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84940704436&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2015.07.015
DO - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2015.07.015
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84940704436
VL - 95
SP - 264
EP - 275
JO - Advances in water resources
JF - Advances in water resources
SN - 0309-1708
ER -