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Microfluidic Devices for Characterizing Pore-scale Event Processes in Porous Media for Oil Recovery Applications
Published on: January 16, 2018
Macroscopic phase-field model of partial wetting: bubbles in a capillary tube
Luis Cueto-Felgueroso1, Ruben Juanes
1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building 48, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
Drops and bubbles are nonspreading, local, compactly supported features. They are also equilibrium configurations in partial wetting phenomena. Yet, current macroscopic theories of capillary-dominated flow are unable to describe these systems. We propose a framework to model multiphase flow in porous media with nonspreading equilibrium configurations. We illustrate our approach with a one-dimensional model of two-phase flow in a capillary tube. Our model allows for the presence of compactons: nonspreading steady-state solutions in the absence of external forces. We show that local rate dependency is not needed to explain globally rate-dependent displacement patterns, and we interpret dynamic wetting transitions as the route from equilibrium, capillary-dominated configurations, towards viscous-dominated flow. Mathematically, these transitions are possible due to nonclassical shock solutions and the role of bistability and higher-order terms in our model.
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