An Efficient Method to Compute Capillary Pressure Functions and Saturation-Dependent Permeabilities in Porous Domains Spanning Several Length Scales

• Published in: Transport in porous media Vol. 151; no. 9; pp. 1825 - 1847
• Main Authors: Becker, Dominik, Steiner, Konrad, Rief, Stefan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.07.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Capillary flow; Capillary pressure; Civil Engineering; Classical and Continuum Physics; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Geometry; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Hydrogeology; Hydrology/Water Resources; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Isotropic material; Liquid composite molding; Phase distribution; Porous materials; Pressure dependence; Process parameters; Two phase flow; Multiscale simulation; Two-phase flow in porous media; Saturation-dependent permeabilities; Pore-morphology method; Capillary pressure function
• ISSN: 0169-3913; 1573-1634
• DOI: 10.1007/s11242-024-02096-7

A method for calculating capillary pressure functions and saturation-dependent permeabilities of geometries containing several length scales is presented. The method does not require the exact geometries of the smaller length scales. Instead, it requires the effective two-phase flow parameters. It does this by generating phase distributions that form static equilibria at a selected capillary pressure value, similar to pore-morphology methods. Within a porous material, the effective parameters are used to obtain the corresponding phase saturation. It is shown how these phase distributions can be used in geometries spanning several length scales to calculate the capillary pressure function and saturation-dependent permeabilities. The method is tested on a geometry containing a simple isotropic porous material and it is applied to a complex textile stack geometry from a liquid composite molding process. In this geometry, three different length scales can be distinguished. The effective two-phase flow parameters of the textile stack are calculated by the proposed method, avoiding expensive simulations. Article Highlights A method to calculate effective two-phase flow parameters in effective geometries is presented. The method is tested on two examples. The effective parameters of a textile stack from a LCM process are calculated with the method.