Effective Rheology of Two-Phase Flow in Three-Dimensional Porous Media: Experiment and Simulation

• DOI: 10.1007/s11242-017-0874-4
• Publication Date: 2017-06-13T12:44:04Z
• Authors: Santanu Sinha; Andrew T. Bender; Matthew Danczyk; Kayla Keepseagle; Cody A. Prather; Joshua M. Bray; Linn W. Thrane; Joseph D. Seymour; Sarah L. Codd; Alex Hansen
• Keywords: Capillary pressure

We present an experimental and numerical study of immiscible two-phase flow Newtonian fluids in three-dimensional (3D) porous media to find the relationship between volumetric rate (Q) total pressure difference ( $$\Delta P$$ ) steady state. show that regime where capillary forces compete with viscous forces, distribution barriers at interfaces effectively creates a yield threshold $$P_t$$ ), making reminiscent Bingham viscoplastic fluid medium. In this regime, Q depends quadratically on excess drop P-P_t$$ ). While increasing rate, there is transition, beyond which overall linear. our experiments, we build model medium using column glass beads transporting two fluids, deionized water air. For study, reconstructed 3D pore networks from real core samples are considered transport wetting non-wetting through network modeled by tracking time. agreement results. Our results match mean-field reported earlier.