Dynamic Pore-Scale Model of Drainage in Granular Porous Media: The Pore-Unit Assembly Method.

ABSTRACT: Dynamics of drainage is analyzed for packings of spheres, using numerical experiments. For this purpose, a dynamic pore-scale model was developed to simulate water flow during drainage. The pore space inside a packing of spheres was extracted using regular triangulation, resulting in an assembly of grain-based tetrahedra. Then, pore units were constructed by identifying and merging tetrahedra that belong to the same pore, resulting in an assembly of pore units. Each pore unit was approximated by a volume-equivalent regular shape (e.g., cube and octahedron), for which a local capillary pressure-saturation relationship was obtained. To simulate unsaturated flow, a pore-scale version of IMPES (implicit pressure solver and explicit saturation update) was employed in order to calculate pressure

SUBMITTER: Sweijen T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6099531 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature