Submit to Energies Review for Energies Propose a Special Issue

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser

Advances in Simulation of Fluid Flow Dynamics in Porous and Fractured Media

Print Special Issue Flyer
Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "H: Geo-Energy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2022) | Viewed by 6586

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Zhenhua Chai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Mathematics and Statistics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
Interests: Lattice Boltzmann method; flow in porous media; microfluidics; multiphase flow

Prof. Dr. Jianchao Cai

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

College of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum, Beijing 102249, China
Interests: porous media; nanofluids; EOR; fractal; capillary pressure; imbibition; mutlphase flow in porous media
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Moran Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Engineering Mechanics, School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Interests: micro/nano fluids; transport in porous media; multiscale modeling; heat transfer; complex fluids
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Fluid flow dynamics in porous and fractured media play a significant role in many fields, such as CO₂ sequestration, enhanced oil recovery and fuel cells, to name but a few. With the development of computer science and numerical techniques, the numerical simulation, as an important approach, has received increasing attention in the study of the fluid flows in porous and fractured media. However, due to the complexity of the pore structure of porous media, the transport process is very complicated. To explore the transport mechanism of fluid flows in porous and fractured media, the development of more advanced numerical methods is desirable, and the performance of numerical simulations is necessary to understand the complex transport process. This Special Issue aims to cover recent advances in fluid flow simulations in porous and fractured media.

We invite you to submit original research articles, case studies, and review papers to address the most significant challenges in the simulation of fluid flow dynamics in porous and fractured media. Submissions on, but are not limited to, the topics listed below are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Zhenhua Chai
Prof. Dr. Jianchao Cai
Prof. Dr. Moran Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Numerical methods for fluid flows in porous and fractured media
Coupled transport phenomena
Pore network modeling
Fractal modeling
Upscaling
Multiphase flows
Capillarity

Published Papers (3 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

26 pages, 7122 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Numerical Simulation of Fluid Flow in Carbonate Rocks Based on Digital Rock Technology

by Yong Hu, Jiong Wei, Tao Li, Weiwei Zhu, Wenbo Gong, Dong Hui and Moran Wang

Energies 2022, 15(10), 3748; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15103748 - 19 May 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1579

Abstract

Strong heterogeneity, low matrix permeability, and complex oil–water interaction make the fluid flow in carbonate rocks extremely complicated. In this study, we quantitatively characterize and simulate single-phase and multiphase flows with multiscale pore–vug–fracture structures involved in the carbonate reservoir developments. The main studies and conclusions include: (i) The CT technology is utilized to characterize the pores, fractures, and vugs of carbonate cores at multiple scales. It is found that even if the CT resolution reaches 0.5 μm, the pores of the core are still unconnected as a network, indicating that the carbonate matrix is particularly tight. The existence of fractures can increase the effective permeability, and even poorly connected fractures can significantly increase the permeability because it reduces the flow distance through the less permeable matrix. (ii) A numerical model of low-porosity strongly heterogeneous carbonate rocks was constructed based on digital image processing. Simulations of single-phase fluid flow under reservoir conditions were conducted, and the effects of surrounding pressure, pore pressure, and core size on the single-phase flow were investigated. Due to the strong heterogeneity of carbonate rocks, the pores, vugs, and fractures cause local preferential flow and disturbance within the core, which significantly affects the fluid flow path and the pressure distribution in the core. The overall permeability is a composite representation of the permeability of numerous microelements in the specimen. Permeability increases with an increasing pore pressure, and it decreases with increasing circumferential pressure. (iii) The gas–water two-phase flow model of a low-porosity strongly heterogeneous carbonate rock was established based on digital image processing. The variation law of the two-phase outlet flow velocity with the inlet gas pressure and the movement law of the two-phase interface of carbonate rock samples were obtained. Under certain surrounding pressure, the outlet gas velocity is larger than the outlet water velocity; with the increase of the inlet gas pressure, the pore space occupied by the gas phase in the rock becomes larger. With the increase of the surrounding pressure, the velocities of both outlet gas and water decrease. As the sample size decreases, the velocities of both outlet gas and water increase. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Simulation of Fluid Flow Dynamics in Porous and Fractured Media)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

23 pages, 5368 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Coupled Basin and Hydro-Mechanical Modeling of Gas Chimney Formation: The SW Barents Sea

by Georgy A. Peshkov, Lyudmila A. Khakimova, Elena V. Grishko, Magnus Wangen and Viktoria M. Yarushina

Energies 2021, 14(19), 6345; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en14196345 - 04 Oct 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2147

Abstract

Gas chimneys are one of the most intriguing manifestations of the focused fluid flows in sedimentary basins. To predict natural and human-induced fluid leakage, it is essential to understand the mechanism of how fluid flow localizes into conductive chimneys and the chimney dynamics. This work predicts conditions and parameters for chimney formation in two fields in the SW Barents Sea, the Tornerose field and the Snøhvit field in the Hammerfest Basin. The work is based on two types of models, basin modeling and hydro-mechanical modeling of chimney formation. Multi-layer basin models were used to produce the initial conditions for the hydro-mechanical modeling of the relatively fast chimneys propagation process. Using hydro-mechanical models, we determined the thermal, structural, and petrophysical features of the gas chimney formation for the Tornerose field and the Snøhvit field. Our hydro-mechanical model treats the propagation of chimneys through lithological boundaries with strong contrasts. The model reproduces chimneys identified by seismic imaging without pre-defining their locations or geometry. The chimney locations were determined by the steepness of the interface between the reservoir and the caprock, the reservoir thickness, and the compaction length of the strata. We demonstrate that chimneys are highly-permeable leakage pathways. The width and propagation speed of a single chimney strongly depends on the viscosity and permeability of the rock. For the chimneys of the Snøhvit field, the predicted time of formation is about 13 to 40 years for an about 2 km high chimney. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Simulation of Fluid Flow Dynamics in Porous and Fractured Media)

► Show Figures

Graphical abstract

19 pages, 9593 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Pore-Scale Investigation on Natural Convection Melting in a Square Cavity with Gradient Porous Media

by Jiangxu Huang, Kun He and Lei Wang

Energies 2021, 14(14), 4274; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en14144274 - 15 Jul 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1583

Abstract

In this paper, natural convection melting in a square cavity with gradient porous media is numerically studied at pore-scale level by adopting the lattice Boltzmann method. To generate the gradient porous media, a Monte Carlo technique based on the random sampling principle is used. The effects of several factors, such as Rayleigh number, gradient porosity structure, gradient direction, and particle diameters on natural convection melting are investigated in detail. Based on the numerical data, it is observed that the thermal performance of the gradient porous media always depends on the Rayleigh number and, specifically, as the Rayleigh number is set to

10^{6}

, the total melting time obtained for the case of the negative gradient porous media is always shorter than the cases of positive gradient and uniform porous media. However, if the Rayleigh number is equal to

10^{4}

, at which the heat transfer is dominated by the heat conduction, it is noted that the performance of the positive gradient porous media is better than the other cases. To have a better understand on this point, various simulations are also performed and we found that there usually exists a critical value of Rayleigh number to determine the thermal performance of the gradient porous media. Moreover, our numerical results also show that the influence of the particle diameter on the liquid fraction is insignificant as Rayleigh number is set to