Disorder characterization of porous media and its effect on fluid displacement

Wang, Zhongzheng; Chauhan, Kapil; Pereira, Jean‐Michel; Gan, Yixiang

doi:10.1103/physrevfluids.4.034305

Cited by 61 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Recent research focused on the impact of wettability on fluid pattern formation and on capillary trapping (Wang et al, 2019). In their classical work Cieplak and Robbins (1988) discussed an interesting dynamical phase transition associated with changes in local growth modes at the displacement front .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Wettability and Surface Roughness on Fluid Displacement and Capillary Trapping in 2‐D and 3‐D Porous Media: 1. Wettability‐Controlled Phase Transition of Trapping Efficiency in Glass Beads Packs

Geistlinger

Zulfiqar

2020

Water Resources Research

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Fluid invasion, displacement of one fluid by another in porous media, is important in a large number of industrial and natural processes. Of special interest is the trapping of gas and oil clusters. We study the impact of wettability on fluid pattern formation and capillary trapping in three-dimensional glass beads packs (d mean = 1 mm) during fluid invasion at capillary numbers of 10 −7 using μ-CT. The invading fluid was water, and the defending fluid was air. The contact angle of the glass beads was altered between 5°and 115°using Piranha cleaning and silanization. We analyzed the front morphology of the invading fluid, the residual gas saturation, the fluid occupation frequency of pores, and the morphology and statistics of the trapped gas clusters. We found a sharp transition (crossover) at a critical contact angle θ c = 96°. Below θ c the morphology of the displacement front was flat and compact caused by the strong smoothing effect of cooperative filling. Above θ c the morphology of the displacement front was fractal and ramified caused by single bursts (Haines jumps). Across this dynamical phase transition the trapping efficiency changes from no trapping to maximal trapping. For θ > θ c the experimental results show that invasion percolation governs the fluid displacement. Strong indicators are the universal scaling behavior of the size distribution of large clusters (relative data error ε data < 1%) and their linear surface-volume relationship (R 2 = 0.99).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Wettability and Surface Roughness on Fluid Displacement and Capillary Trapping in 2‐D and 3‐D Porous Media: 1. Wettability‐Controlled Phase Transition of Trapping Efficiency in Glass Beads Packs

Geistlinger

Zulfiqar

2020

Water Resources Research

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“…Recent research has focused on capillary trapping and the impact of wettability on fluid pattern formation. Wang et al (2019) studied the combined effect of viscous and capillary forces, local disorder, and wettability using Lattice-Boltzmann simulations. The 2-D triangular stochastic lattice consisted of circular grains with a uniformly distributed grain diameter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Wettability and Surface Roughness on Fluid Displacement and Capillary Trapping in 2‐D and 3‐D Porous Media: 2. Combined Effect of Wettability, Surface Roughness, and Pore Space Structure on Trapping Efficiency in Sand Packs and Micromodels

Zulfiqar

Vogel²,

Ding

et al. 2020

Water Resources Research

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A comprehensive understanding of the combined effects of surface roughness and wettability on the dynamics of the trapping process is lacking. This can be primarily attributed to the contradictory experimental and numerical results regarding the impact of wettability on the capillary trapping efficiency. The discrepancy is presumably caused by the surface roughness of the inner pore-solid interface. Herein, we present a comparative μ-CT study of the static fluid-fluid pattern in porous media with smooth (glass beads) and rough surfaces (natural sands). For the first time, a global optimization method was applied to map the characteristic geometrical and morphological properties of natural sands to 2-D micromodels that exhibit different degrees of surface roughness. A realistic wetting model that describes the apparent contact angle of the rough surface as a function surface morphology and the intrinsic contact angle was also proposed. The dynamics of the trapping processes were studied via visualization micromodel experiments. Our results revealed that sand and glass beads displayed opposite trends in terms of the contact angle dependence between 5°and 115°. Sand depicted a nonmonotonous functional contact angle dependency, that is, a transition from maximal trapping to no trapping, followed by an increase to medium trapping. In contrast, glass beads showed a sharp transition from no trapping to maximal trapping. Since both porous media exhibit similar morphological properties (similar Minkowski functions: porosity, surface density, mean curvature density, Euler number density), we deduce that this difference in behavior is caused by the difference in surface roughness that allows complete wetting and hence precursor thick-film flow for natural sands. Experimental results on micromodels verified this hypothesis.

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“…This increase in e↵ective contact angle suppresses cooperative pore filling events, promoting trapping 16,65 , consistent with past results. [11][12][13][14]16 Moreover, the volume of trapped ganglia for cases with large Dy (Dy = 12, slow wetting transition) can be very close to the one with Dy = 1 where wetting transition does not take place. However, from Fig.3(B The interfacial length in lattice unit l l can be defined as the total front length between the defending fluid and the union of invading fluid and grains, as shown by the white-solid curve in Fig.3(A).…”

Section: Displacement E Ciencymentioning

confidence: 80%

Effect of Wetting Transition during Multiphase Displacement in Porous Media

2020

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The e↵ects of wettability on multiphase displacement in porous media have been studied extensively in the past, and the contact angle is identified as an important factor influencing the displacement patterns. At the same time, it has been found that e↵ective contact angle can vary drastically in a time-dependent manner on rough surfaces due to Cassie-Wenzel wetting transition. In this study, we develop a theoretical model at the pore scale describing the apparent contact angle on rough interface as a function of time. The theory is then incorporated into the Lattice Boltzmann method for simulation of multiphase displacement in disordered porous media. A dimensionless time ratio, Dy, describing the relative speed of wetting transition and pore invasion is defined. We show that the displacement patterns can be significantly influenced by Dy, where more trapped defending ganglia are observed at large Dy, leading to lower displacement e ciency. We investigate the mobilization of trapped ganglia through identifying di↵erent mobilization dynamics during displacement, including translation, coalescence, and fragmentation. Agreement is observed between the mobilization statistics and the total pressure gradient across a wide range of Dy. Understanding the e↵ect of wetting transition during multiphase displacement in porous media is of importance 1 for applications such as carbon geosequestration and oil recovery, especially for porous media where solid surface roughness cannot be neglected.

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Disorder characterization of porous media and its effect on fluid displacement

Cited by 61 publications

References 52 publications

The Impact of Wettability and Surface Roughness on Fluid Displacement and Capillary Trapping in 2‐D and 3‐D Porous Media: 1. Wettability‐Controlled Phase Transition of Trapping Efficiency in Glass Beads Packs

The Impact of Wettability and Surface Roughness on Fluid Displacement and Capillary Trapping in 2‐D and 3‐D Porous Media: 1. Wettability‐Controlled Phase Transition of Trapping Efficiency in Glass Beads Packs

The Impact of Wettability and Surface Roughness on Fluid Displacement and Capillary Trapping in 2‐D and 3‐D Porous Media: 2. Combined Effect of Wettability, Surface Roughness, and Pore Space Structure on Trapping Efficiency in Sand Packs and Micromodels

Effect of Wetting Transition during Multiphase Displacement in Porous Media

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