Bulletin of the American Physical Society
68th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics
Volume 60, Number 21
Sunday–Tuesday, November 22–24, 2015; Boston, Massachusetts
Session D1: Porous Media Flows: Convection and CO2 Sequestration |
Hide Abstracts |
Chair: Miltiadis Papalexandris, Université catholique de Louvain Room: Auditorium |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 2:10PM - 2:23PM |
D1.00001: Numerical study of thermally stratified shear flows at the interface between porous and pure-fluid layers Miltiadis V. Papalexandris, Panagiotis D. Antoniadis In this talk we are concerned with thermally stratified flows at the interface between superposed porous and pure-fluid layers. In our study we employ a thermo-mechanical model for the flows of interest that was recently developed by our team. According to this model, both the fluid and the solid matrix are treated as two separate and identifiable continua that are in thermal non-equilibrium with each other. This allows for the derivation of a single set of equations that are simultaneously valid both in the porous and pure-fluid regions. First, we briefly present the basic steps of the derivation of the mathematical model and describe an algorithm for its numerical treatment. Then, we present and discuss numerical results for transient shear flows in the domains of interest, under both stable and unstable thermal stratification. Emphasis is placed on the effects of buoyancy to the evolution of the flow structures at the interface and on the mechanisms that induce thermal non-equilibrium inside the porous medium. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 2:23PM - 2:36PM |
D1.00002: Experimental Investigation of Dissolution-Driven Convection in Heterogeneous Porous Medium Rui Ni, Ashwanth K. R. Salibindla, Ashik Ullah Mohammad Masuk, Jikang Shen Subsurface carbon sequestration in saline aquifers has emerged as one promising method to mitigate anthropogenic emission of CO2 because of the potential storage capacity of the accessible formations. Being injected into the porous formation underground, the buoyant CO2 will start to migrate upward and may eventually leak back to the surface through faults in the overlying caprock. This leaking process may be hindered or even completely stopped due to the dissolution of CO2 into the brine. For those locations, where the supercritical CO2 is above the brine, the dissolution between the two fluids leads to a mixture with higher density than both CO2 and brine; and thus the resultant solution on the interface is unstable, drawing the CO2-rich mixture downward and rendering the sequestration significantly more stable. Previous laboratory experiments on dissolution-driven convection were mostly limited to a simplified case where the porous medium was assumed to be homogenous. To account for the heterogeneity existing in the actual formations, we designed a series of experiments in controlled ways to introduce spatial variations of permeability. By measuring the mass transfer efficiency under different conditions, our experiments provide a new way to assess the [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 2:36PM - 2:49PM |
D1.00003: Nonlinear saturation and secondary bifurcation in gravitationally unstable boundary layers in porous medium Zohreh Ghorbani, Amir Riaz The convective mixing, triggered by gravitational instability, plays an important role in CO$_2$ sequestration in saline aquifers. For this problem, the characteristics of the saturation event and the post saturation period over which a second onset of bifurcation occurs is investigated using discrete mode perturbation approach via high accuracy numerical simulation. We find that the critical time for the onset of nonlinear saturation scales linearly with the inverse of the Rayleigh number. The effect of initial perturbation as well as the critical wavelength at the onset of saturation is explored. In the post saturation period the flux decays as t$^{-1}$. It is also observed that the second bifurcation is triggered beyond a critical point when the CO$_2$ flux dips below the level associated with the corresponding unperturbed flow. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 2:49PM - 3:02PM |
D1.00004: Pore-scale study of Horton-Rogers-Lapwood convection in porous media: Effect of microscale thermophysical heterogeneity on the onset of convection Hamid Karani, Christian Huber A direct-numerical-simulation is employed on a 2-dimensional Horton-Rogers-Lapwood convection problem in a regular porous medium. High resolution numerical simulation is performed by the thermal lattice-Boltzmann method. The governing equations are solved at the pore-scale level in both the fluid and solid phases while conserving the appropriate conjugate boundary condition at the solid-fluid interface. This allows us to calculate continuum-scale parameters such as the permeability and the stagnant thermal conductivity of the medium very accurately without using any empirical formulations. Also, the regular arrangement of the solid blocks allows us to calculate the intrinsic-averaged temperatures of each phase in the porous medium. This information is used to test the assumption of local thermal equilibrium between the fluid and solid phases. Our model is then used to probe the effect of contrasting thermal properties between the two phases. We observe that increasing the contrast in thermal conductivities leads to a departure from local thermal equilibrium between the two phases. This indeed causes a shift for the onset of convection in terms of critical Rayleigh number and a modification of the Nusselt-Rayleigh number correlation after the onset of convection. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 3:02PM - 3:15PM |
D1.00005: Inclined porous medium convection at large Rayleigh number Baole Wen, Greg Chini DNS are performed to study pattern formation in and transport properties of high-Rayleigh-number ($Ra$) convection in a 2D porous layer inclined at an angle $\phi$ to the horizontal. The results indicate that for $0 < \phi < 25^{\circ}$, the flow exhibits a similar 3-region structure as is manifest in the horizontal case, except that as $\phi$ is increased the time-mean spacing between neighboring interior `mega-plumes' is also substantially increased. Nevertheless, for $0 < \phi < 20^{\circ}$, the Nusselt number $Nu$ is almost unchanged. However, when $\phi > \phi_t$, where $30^{\circ} < \phi_t < 32^{\circ}$, the columnar flow structure is completely broken down: the flow transitions to a large-scale traveling-wave convective roll state, and the heat transport is significantly reduced. To better understand the physics of high-$Ra$ porous medium convection at small $\phi$, a spatial Floquet analysis is performed, yielding predictions of the linear stability of numerically-computed, fully nonlinear steady convective states. Our results show that the background flow induced by the inclination of the layer intensifies the bulk instability during its subsequent nonlinear evolution, thereby favoring increased spacing between the interior plumes relative to the horizontal scenario. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 3:15PM - 3:28PM |
D1.00006: On Permeability Dynamics in Carbonaceous Aquifers used in Energy Storage Applications DS Brady, BS Tilley, M Ueckert, T Baumann Geothermal energy harvesting applications use deep groundwater aquifers to store harvested energy. The impact of this additional energy to the aquifer chemistry is crucial for long-term operation. Gaseous CO2 is added to the injected water to compensate potential precipitates of carbonates and to prevent structural changes to the aquifer. Both of these effects affect the local chemical equilibrium of the aquifer, and we consider an effective model through homogenization which captures the hydrochemistry, heat transfer, fluid flow and permeability dynamics of the aquifer as heated fluid is added to the aquifer (injection), and as it is later removed (production). The impact of these different physical mechanisms of the heat storage performance of the aquifer is discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 3:28PM - 3:41PM |
D1.00007: Experimental study of pattern formation during carbon dioxide mineralization Gabor Schuszter, Fabian Brau, Anne De Wit Injection of supercritical carbon dioxide in deep porous aquifers, where mineral carbonation takes place via chemical reactions, is one of the possible long-term storage of this greenhouse gas. This mineralization process is investigated experimentally under controlled conditions in a confined horizontal Hele-Shaw geometry where an aqueous solution of sodium carbonate is injected radially into a solution of calcium chloride. Precipitation of calcium carbonate in various finger, flower or tube-like patterns is observed in the mixing zone between the two solutions. These precipitation structures and their growth dynamics are studied quantitatively as a function of the parameters of the problem, which are the injection rate and the reactant concentrations. In particular, we show the existence of critical concentrations of reactants above which the amount of the calcium carbonate precipitate produced drops significantly. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 3:41PM - 3:54PM |
D1.00008: Modeling the Dynamics of Remobilized CO2 within the Geologic Subsurface Erik Huber, Donald Koch, Abraham Stroock Long after CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$ is injected into a brine aquifer, most reservoir-scale fluid dynamic simulations predict large fractions of the original plume will become immobilized via capillary trapping and dispersed throughout the formation. We begin our analysis with a reservoir in this state and consider the effects caused by a depressurization of the domain (e.g. from a nearby production well or newly formed fracture between neighboring reservoirs). Using supercritical CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$ density data from NIST and an assumed knowledge of the minimum residual saturation of CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$, we demonstrate that even a large decrease in reservoir pressure is likely to only result in a small mass fraction of remobilized CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$. Once mobile, this volume of CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$ will rise in the reservoir and concentrate beneath the caprock of the domain. We show that a model of relative permeability that takes account of insights from percolation theory near the minimum CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$ saturation leads to much more rapid rise of remobilized CO$_{\mathrm{2}}$ than a traditional empirical correlation such as the Brooks-Corey model. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 3:54PM - 4:07PM |
D1.00009: Micro-PIV Study of Supercritical CO$_{2}$-Water Interactions in Porous Micromodels Farzan Kazemifar, Gianluca Blois, Kenneth T. Christensen Multiphase flow of immiscible fluids in porous media is encountered in numerous natural systems and engineering applications such as enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and CO$_{2}$ sequestration among others. Geological sequestration of CO$_{2}$ in saline aquifers has emerged as a viable option for reducing CO$_{2}$ emissions, and thus it has been the subject of numerous studies in recent years. A key objective is improving the accuracy of numerical models used for field-scale simulations by incorporation/better representation of the pore-scale flow physics. This necessitates experimental data for developing, testing and validating such models. We have studied drainage and imbibition processes in a homogeneous, two-dimensional porous micromodel with CO$_{2}$ and water at reservoir-relevant conditions. Microscopic particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) technique was applied to obtain spatially- and temporally-resolved velocity vector fields in the aqueous phase. The results provide new insight into the flow processes at the pore scale. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, November 22, 2015 4:07PM - 4:20PM |
D1.00010: Micro-PIV measurements of multiphase flow of water and liquid CO$_{2}$ in 2D homogeneous and heterogeneous porous micromodels Yaofa Li, Farzan Kazemifar, Gianluca Blois, Kenneth Christensen Geological sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO$_{2}$) has been of great interest primarily for the reason of CO$_{2}$ emission reduction and enhanced oil recovery. Yet, our fundamental understanding of the coupled flow dynamics of CO$_{2}$ and water in geologic media still remains limited, especially at the pore scale. Therefore, in this work the pore-scale flow of water and liquid/supercritical CO$_{2}$ are quantified in 2D homogeneous and heterogeneous porous micro-models under reservoir-relevant conditions. Fluorescent microscopy and the micro-PIV technique are employed to simultaneously visualize both phases and obtain the velocity field in the aqueous phase. The velocity measurements in the homogeneous micro-model illustrate active and passive flow pathways and circulation regions near the fluid-fluid interfaces induced by shear. Moreover, the results for heterogeneous micro-models are presented and compared with those for homogeneous micro-models, which give valuable insight into flow processes at the pore scale in natural rock. [Preview Abstract] |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700