Dynamics of a Highly Viscous Circular Blob in Homogeneous Porous Media

Vandita Sharma; Satyajit Pramanik; Manoranjan Mishra

doi:10.3390/fluids2020032

journal article Open Access Jun 11, 2017

Dynamics of a Highly Viscous Circular Blob in Homogeneous Porous Media

Vandita Sharma Satyajit Pramanik Manoranjan Mishra

Fluids Vol. 2 No. 2 pp. 32 · MDPI AG

View at Publisher Save 10.3390/fluids2020032

Abstract

Viscous fingering is ubiquitous in miscible displacements in porous media, in particular, oil recovery, contaminant transport in aquifers, chromatography separation, and geological CO2 sequestration. The viscosity contrasts between heavy oil and water is several orders of magnitude larger than typical viscosity contrasts considered in the majority of the literature. We use the finite element method (FEM)-based COMSOL Multiphysics simulator to simulate miscible displacements in homogeneous porous media with very large viscosity contrasts. Our numerical model is suitable for a wide range of viscosity contrasts covering chromatographic separation as well as heavy oil recovery. We have successfully captured some interesting and previously unexplored dynamics of miscible blobs with very large viscosity contrasts in homogeneous porous media. We study the effect of viscosity contrast on the spreading and the degree of mixing of the blob. Spreading (variance of transversely averaged concentration) follows the power law t 3 . 34 for the blobs with viscosity ∼ O ( 10 2 ) and higher, while degree of mixing is found to vary non-monotonically with log-mobility ratio. Moreover, in the limit of very large viscosity contrast, the circular blob behaves like an erodible solid body and the degree of mixing approaches the viscosity-matched case.

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Details

Published: Jun 11, 2017
Vol/Issue: 2(2)
Pages: 32
License: View

Authors

V

Vandita Sharma

Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, 140001 Rupnagar, India

S

Satyajit Pramanik

Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA), KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, Roslagstullsbacken 23, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden

M

Manoranjan Mishra

Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, 140001 Rupnagar, India

Cite This Article

Vandita Sharma, Satyajit Pramanik, Manoranjan Mishra (2017). Dynamics of a Highly Viscous Circular Blob in Homogeneous Porous Media. Fluids, 2(2), 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids2020032

Dynamics of a Highly Viscous Circular Blob in Homogeneous Porous Media

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