Transient immiscible two-phase flow

WORK PACKAGE 4:

We study transient phenomena in porous media, particularly the elaxation behavior before the system reaches a steady-state and the crossover length and times associated with the different forces involved. The physics of flow in porous and fractured media is of large importance for the oil industry, hydrology, soil mechanics, environmental engineering and even the human body.

Viscous fingering Glycerol is displaced by air in a model of a porous medium. The gray tones in glycerol indicates the pressure. Models of porous media represent sandstone filled with oil that are being displaced by sea water during oil extraction under the sea bed. Picture courtesy: Department of Physics, UiO.

Principal Investigator WP4: Professor Knut Jørgen Måløy. Partners: Profs Dag Dysthe, Eirik Grude Flekkøy, Alex Hansen, Bjørnar Sandnes, Stéphane Santucci, Laurent Talon, Ole Torsæter, Renaud Toussaint. Postdoctoral Fellows: Marcel Moura.

Description: Understanding how different short (e.g. capillary forces) and long range (e.g. viscous forces) act in different flow regimes and the specific scaling followed by the Two-phase flow involved (often fractal) is crucial to a successful upscaling of the results This is necessary to bridge the gap between laboratorial experiments and industrial or environmental applications. A thorough experimental investigation is necessary to predict the structure and transition between different regimes both in 2D and 3D. In particular, very few experiments have been performed to study transient phenomena in 3D, due to the natural difficulty to observe the flows. We will investigate non-trivial fluid invasion mechanisms such as corner and film, which are bound to occur in the larger time scales of importance for industrial and geological applications.

Plenary lectures at international conferences and distinguished lectures

Media coverage

Selected articles before center launch

Moura M, Fiorentino E.-A., Måløy K.J., Schafer G., and Toussaint R., Impact of sample geometry on the measurement of pressure-saturation curves: experiments and simulations. Water Resour. Res., 51, doi:10.1002/ 2015WR017196 (2015).
R. Tuossaint, G. Løvoll, Y. Meheust, K. J. Måløy, and J. Schmittbuhl, Influence of pore-scale disorder on viscous fingering during drainage. Europhys Lett. 71, 583, (2005). doi: 10.1209/epl/i2005-10136-9
G. Løvoll, Y. Meheust, R. Toussaint, J. Schmittbuhl, and K. J. Måløy. Growth activity during fingering in a porous Hele-Shaw cell. Phys. Rev. E 70, 026301 (2004)
Y. Meheust, G. Løvoll, K. J. Måløy, and J. Schmittbuhl, Gravity stabilized viscous fingering. Phys. Rev. E. 66, 051603 (2002)
K. J. Måløy, Liv Furuberg, J. Feder and T. Jøssang. Dynamics of Slow Drainage in Porous Media. Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 2161-2164, (1992)
K. J. Måløy, Jens. Feder and T. Jøssang. Viscous Fingering Fractals in Porous Media. Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 2688-2691, (1985). doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.55.2688

Recent articles

Eriksen, Fredrik Kvalheim; Toussaint, Renaud; Turquet, Antoine Léo; Måløy, Knut Jørgen & Flekkøy, Eirik Grude (2017). Pneumatic fractures in confined granular media. Physical Review E. Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics. ISSN 1063-651X. . doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.95.062901
Moura, Marcel; Måløy, Knut Jørgen & Toussaint, Renaud (2017). Critical behavior in porous media flow. Europhysics letters. ISSN 0295-5075. 118(1) . doi:10.1209/0295-5075/118/14004

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On June 12th, Tran Quoc-Anh, Ph.D student in Computational Geomechanics from the Department of Civil Engineering at Aalto University, Espoo, Finland, will present a research proposal regarding “Landslides investigation and consequences”. Please note that the meeting will be held on skype.

The title and abstract for the presentation is:

Abstract:

Landslides are a serious natural hazard common to many regions in Europe. From 1995 to 2014, 476 landslides were reported in Europe with a total of 1370 deaths and 784 injuries and an average economic loss of approximately 4.7 billion euros per year. It is important to estimate potential landslides and their consequences. However, modelling the landslides is a long-standing challenge as it involves the triggering mechanism (rainfall, erosion or human-made activities), the onset of failure and post-failure mechanism such as run-out distances. Therefore, it requires advanced numerical approaches to be capable of simulating large deformation problems as well as an advanced constitutive model to consider the solid-fluid transition behavior.

Antoine will also apply for a Marie Curie grant and will present his proposal before the group on Thursday, before the journal club.
The title and definition of the project is:

On June 13th at 13:30, Dr. Antoine Léo Turquet, researcher at PoreLab Oslo, will hold a presentation on “A-MAZE-IN-FUELCELLS: Use of disordered labyrinth patterns in Fuelcells”

On June the 18th, Professor Majid Hassanizadeh, Managing Director at InterPore and Professor of Hydrogeology at Utrecht University, will give a talk on “Advanced theories of two-phase flow in deformable porous media; experimental and computation studies”.

Abstract:

Two-phase flow in porous media is traditionally modeled using a modified form of Darcy’s law, two volume balance equations, and a so-called capillary pressure-saturation relationship. Darcy’s Law was proposed more than 150 years ago for the flow of a single fluid in soil. Since then, this equation, in almost original form, has been assumed to be applicable to more and more complicated porous media. But, there are many shortcomings of the so-called extended Darcy’s Law. Also, the empirical relationship between capillary pressure and saturation is known to suffer from some important shortcoming (it is hysteretic and may depend on the rate of flow or rate of change of saturation).

In this lecture, we present a new theory of two-phase flow, which comprises a truly extended Darcy’s law and a new capillarity theory, which has five main features: i) pressure gradient is not the only driving force, ii) saturation and pressure are not the only state variable; fluid-fluid interfacial area is another state variable, iii) capillary pressure is an intrinsic property of the porous medium and is not only a function of saturation but also fluid-fluid specific interfacial areas, iv) effective stress parameter is a function of fluid-fluid specific interfacial area as well as saturation, and v) there is a dynamic (or non-equilibrium) capillarity effect. We provide experimental evidences for the validity of the new theory. Also, pore-scale and continuum-scale simulations are used to study the possible significance of the new theory at various scales.

On June the 25th, Professor Majid Hassanizadeh, Managing Director at InterPore and Professor of Hydrogeology at Utrecht University, will give a talk on “Capillarity in porous media at different scales”

Abstract:

In this lecture, current definitions of capillary pressure, which are mostly empirical in nature are revisited and it is shown that they are special cases of a more general theory of capillarity. In particular, capillary pressure is defined at pore scale based on equations of momentum conservation for interfaces. It is shown that in general, capillary pressure is equal to the difference in pressures of the two fluids only under static conditions. For dynamic conditions, a non-equilibrium capillarity equation is derived. Based on results of experimental studies, it is shown the current working assumption that capillary pressure is a function of saturation is grossly deficient. In this regard, the role of fluid-fluid interfaces in the characterization of capillarity is elucidated. Computational and experimental studies are presented that highlight the value of new generalized capillarity theory.

Eirik Flekkøy on the famous TV program "Brille"

Professor Eirik Grude Flekkøy was invited on April 23rd, 2019, to participate to the famous Norwegian TV program, “Brille”, on TV Norge. Eirik explains the mechanism of the flying chain fountain phenomenon as well as 2 other physical phenomena. Read more here.

Gemini article: Grunnforskning kan gi bedre varsel før ras

Olav Galteland, Dick Bedeaux, Signe Kjelstrup, Bjørn Hafskjold and Alex Hansen explain how the activities at PoreLab could help with the prediction of mudslides. Read the article (in Norwegian) here

Cover story for Entropy

The paper from Mariá Barragán, Kim Kristiansen and Signe Kjelstrup entitled "Perspectives on Thermoelectric Energy Conversion in Ion-Exchange Membranes" was selected as the cover story for ENTROPY Volume 20. Read the paper here

Mechanisms of the Flying Chain Fountain

When a chain is released by one end from a container, it forms a striking arch extending well above the container. Watch the video of this curious phenomenon here and read more about the physics behind it here

50th Anniversary of the Nobel Prize to Lars Onsager

On Thursday 22 November, an exhibition on Lars Onsager opened at the Natural Science Library. It is now 50 years since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Plan S: På høy tid at dette skjer

Professor og leder for SFF ’en Porelab, Alex Hansen, gir Plan S sin fulle tilslutning. Forslaget om at all offentlig finansiert forskning skal publiseres i tidsskrifter med åpen tilgang er eneste riktige, slår han fast.

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