Non‐Darcian two‐phase flow in a transparent replica of a rough‐walled rock fracture

Abstract

[1] This article presents experimental results for single-and two-phase flows at high flow rates through a replica of an actual rough-walled rock fracture. The results of the single-phase flow are interpreted using non-Darcian laws: the weak inertia cubic law, Forchheimer's law, and the full cubic law. They allow the determination of the fracture's intrinsic properties (absolute permeability and inertial coefficient). These laws are then generalized to describe non-Darcian two-phase flows. The generalized cubic and Forchheimer's laws are shown to be inconsistent in terms of the relative permeabilities. The generalization of the full cubic law is used to describe the liquid and gas relative permeabilities in the non-Darcian regime with a good accuracy.

Effects of Hydraulic Gradient, Intersecting Angle, Aperture, and Fracture Length on the Nonlinearity of Fluid Flow in Smooth Intersecting Fractures: An Experimental Investigation

“…If the values of and are measurable and constant, the value of can be calculated directly. In addition, in some studies, the value of is considered the intrinsic permeability of the fractured media [29,41,42]. The coefficient in (5b) is determined from the geometrical properties of the fractures and media in the experiments [34,40,43].…”

Non-Darcy Flow Experiments of Water Seepage through Rough-Walled Rock Fractures

“…Typical characteristics of natural rock fractures include rough walls and asperity contact [2,3], and non-Darcy flow may occur as a result of nonnegligible inertial losses. Previous experimental work demonstrated that Darcy's law fails to predict pressure drops in fractures when inertial effects are relevant before the fully developed turbulence [4][5][6][7]. In the post-Darcy regimes where inertial effects are significant, two equations are invariably used to describe pressure drop as a function of average velocity: Forchheimer and Ergun equation [7,8].…”

Review: Hydraulics of water wells—flow laws and influence of geometry

“…The influence of weak and strong inertial flow is then represented by Eqs. (22) and (23), respectively (Mei and Auriault 1991;Firdaouss et al 1997;Fourar et al 2004;Panfilov and Fourar 2006;Nowamooz et al 2009). It is noteworthy (2010) Sand, unconsolidated nn 7,600-20,000 Geertsma (1974) Sandstone nn 10,400,000-7,350,000,000 Firoozabadi and Katz (1979) nn unknown that Eq.…”

“…Some authors additionally distinguish between flow laws for different degrees of inertial flow (Mei and Auriault 1991;Firdaouss et al 1997;Fourar et al 2004;Panfilov and Fourar 2006;Nowamooz et al 2009). They consider the Forchheimer Eq.…”

“…Flow in fractured media is, however, due to channeling, more likely to be affected by inertial or turbulent processes than in porous media. Nowamooz et al (2009) pointed out that the Forchheimer equation (11a) and the ones for weak (Eq. 22) and strong (Eq.…”