UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Stable and unstable miscible displacements in layered porous media

Nijjer, JS; Hewitt, DR; Neufeld, JA; (2019) Stable and unstable miscible displacements in layered porous media. Journal of Fluid Mechanics , 869 pp. 468-499. 10.1017/jfm.2019.190. Green open access

[thumbnail of Hewitt_Stable and unstable miscible displacements in layered porous media_VoR.pdf]
Preview
Text
Hewitt_Stable and unstable miscible displacements in layered porous media_VoR.pdf - Published Version

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

The effect of permeability heterogeneities and viscosity variations on miscible displacement processes in porous media is examined using high-resolution numerical simulations and reduced theoretical modelling. The planar injection of one fluid into a fluid-saturated, two-dimensional porous medium with a permeability that varies perpendicular to the flow direction is studied. Three cases are considered, in which the injected fluid is equally viscous, more viscous or less viscous than the ambient fluid. In general it is found that the flow in each case evolves through three regimes. At early times, the flow exhibits the concentration evolves diffusively, independent of both the permeability structure and the viscosity ratio. At intermediate times, the flow exhibits different dynamics including channelling and fingering, depending on whether the injected fluid is more or less viscous than the ambient fluid, and depending on the relative magnitude of the viscosity and permeability variations. Finally, at late times, the flow becomes independent of the viscosity ratio and dominated by shear-enhanced (Taylor) dispersion. For each of the regimes identified above, we develop reduced-order models for the evolution of the transversely averaged concentration and compare them to the full numerical simulations.

Type: Article
Title: Stable and unstable miscible displacements in layered porous media
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2019.190
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2019.190
Language: English
Additional information: © 2019 Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: fingering instability, mixing and dispersion, porous media
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Mathematics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10083270
Downloads since deposit
39Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item