Simulating flow in porous media

Abstract

The problem of two-phase fluid flow in statistically homogeneous but random porous media is addressed. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of the stochastic nature of the porous medium in the development of unstable interfaces at large mobility ratios. A formalism is developed in which the random nature of a real porous medium can be incorporated quantitatively into a numerical simulation scheme based on a discretization of the continuum fluid-mechanical equations. In particular, it is not necessary to set the discretization length close to the pore scale and to perform a detailed structural analysis of the microgeometry in order to characterize the random nature of the porous matrix. ..