Bulletin of the American Physical Society
71st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics
Volume 63, Number 13
Sunday–Tuesday, November 18–20, 2018; Atlanta, Georgia
Session D36: Porous Media Flow: CO2 Sequestration and Other Geological Applications |
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Chair: Marc Hesse, University of Texas, Austin Room: Georgia World Congress Center B408 |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 2:30PM - 2:43PM |
D36.00001: Experimental and numerical investigation of convective dissolution in two-dimensional porous media Marco De Paoli, Mobin Alipour, Francesco Zonta, Alfredo Soldati In the frame of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration, accurate measurements and modeling of dissolution fluxes play a key role in understanding the long-term behavior of liquid CO2 injected in underground geological formations. Currently, experiments can easily reach Rayleigh numbers not achievable with the numerical simulations, and yet the wealth of data obtainable via accurate simulations and its accuracy and repeatability cannot be matched by experiments. In this work, we aim at performing a combined numerical and experimental investigation with a twofold target. First, we carefully benchmark our simulation data vis-à-vis experimental measurements in systems controlled by the convective dissolution. Experimental measurements from a Hele-Shaw cell and pseudo-spectral simulations both show that convective fingers have a huge impact on the dissolution dynamics. Second, we analyze the experimental results obtained at large Rayleigh numbers, currently still unattainable via numerical simulation, and we explore the implications of these results for the CO2 convective dissolution in saline aquifers. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 2:43PM - 2:56PM |
D36.00002: Convective carbon dioxide dissolution in a closed porous medium at high-pressure under real-gas conditions Baole Wen, Zhuofan Shi, Marc A Hesse, Theo Tsotsis, Kristian Jessen We combine modeling and measurements to investigate the dynamics of convective carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolution in a pressure-volume-temperature cell, extending a recent study by Wen et al. (JFM, 2018) at low-pressure under ideal-gas conditions to high-pressure and real-gas conditions. Pressure-dependent compressibility factor and solubility are added in the ideal-gas law and the Henry's law, respectively, to model the evolution of CO2 concentration in the gas phase and at the interface. Simple ordinary-differential-equation models are developed to capture the mean behavior of the convecting system at large Rayleigh number and then verified by using direct numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. Our analysis provides a new direction for determination and validation of the convective dissolution flux of CO2 in porous media systems. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 2:56PM - 3:09PM |
D36.00003: A machine learning approach to subsurface characterization in CO2-EOR operations Mohammad Nomeli Sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep, geologic formations is one of the most promising solutions to decrease CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs are one of the geologic targets considered for sequestration. Even though CO2 is currently being used in the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) operations, characterization of hydrocarbon reservoirs through an integrated study that includes experiments and numerical simulations is required to evaluate the actual efficiency of the CO2-EOR operations. A novel Machine Learning algorithm is developed to dynamically characterize hydrocarbon reservoirs. The availability of hydrocarbon reservoirs properties contributes to the optimization of the project, both technically and economically. The results show a good agreement with other experimental literature data. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 3:09PM - 3:22PM |
D36.00004: Impact of pressure dissipation on fluid injection into layered aquifers Luke Jenkins, Martino Foschi, Christopher MacMinn It is well known that large-scale fluid injection into the subsurface leads to a buildup in pressure that gradually spreads and dissipates through diffusive lateral and vertical migration of brine. In carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage, this pressure buildup and dissipation can have an important feedback on the shape of the CO2 plume during injection. The impact of vertical pressure dissipation, in particular, remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate the impact of lateral and vertical pressure dissipation on the injection of CO2 into a layered saline aquifer. We develop a theoretical model that couples vertical brine leakage to the propagation of a CO2 gravity current. We show that our vertically integrated, sharp-interface model is capable of efficiently and accurately capturing brine migration in layered aquifers. We identify two limiting cases - ‘no leakage’ and ‘strong leakage’ - in which we derive analytical expressions for the brine pressure field in the corresponding single-phase injection problem. We demonstrate that pressure dissipation acts to suppress the formation of an advancing CO2 tongue, resulting in a plume with a reduced lateral extent. The impact of pressure dissipation on the shape of the CO2 plume is likely to be important for storage efficiency. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 3:22PM - 3:35PM |
D36.00005: Nonlinear stability analysis for thermal convection in the coupled Navier-Stokes-Darcy system Matthew McCurdy In superposed fluid-porous medium systems, the ratio of the fluid height to the porous medium height exerts a significant influence on the behavior of the coupled system, most notably with its impact on stability and resulting convection cells. Altering the depth ratio slightly can shift convection cells from existing solely in the fluid region to encapsulating the entirety of the fluid and porous regions. With current interest surrounding superposed fluid-porous medium systems in numerous projects of industrial, environmental, and geophysical importance (oil recovery, carbon dioxide sequestration, contamination in sub-soil reservoirs, etc.), being able to predict the critical depth ratio where the shift of convection cells occurs is particularly timely. An investigation through the lens of linear and nonlinear stability analyses provides a more holistic understanding of the nature of the coupled fluid-porous medium system. In this work, we conduct a novel nonlinear stability analysis for thermal convection in the coupled Navier-Stokes-Darcy system. Armed with this analysis, we explore the linear and nonlinear marginal stability curves in addition to examining the effect certain parameters have on stability, with an emphasis on the small Darcy number limit. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 3:35PM - 3:48PM |
D36.00006: Modelling Flow and Dispersion in Heterogeneous Porous Rocks Neeraja Bhamidipati, Andrew W Woods Porous rocks are typically complex, heterogeneous media, with fluctuations in permeability over a range of scales. From a geophysical perspective, it is of interest to understand how such heterogeneities influence flow within such rocks over a range of scales, varying from (a) the reservoir scale, over which the flow may be exposed to many layers associated with different geological flow units; to (b) intermediate scales, over which there are often lenses of different permeability, within individual geological flow units; to (c) much more localised fluctuations associated with grain size variations within individual layers. In this presentation, we combine new laboratory experiments and numerical calculations to explore the influence of heterogeneities on the dispersal of fluid-fluid fronts within a porous rock, illustrating the relationship between (i) the distribution of heterogeneities of a given scale; (ii) the permeability contrast associated with these heterogeneities, and (iii) the rate of dispersal of fluid-fluid fronts, both on short and long times. Using this model, we then assess some idealised bounds on the fraction of the pore space which may be accessible to an injected fluid as relevant, for example, for models of the storage capacity of CO2 in subsurface aquifers. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 3:48PM - 4:01PM |
D36.00007: Oscillating flow over a porous bed Kasey Laurent, Luigi La Ragione, James Jenkins, Gregory P Bewley Sediment transport is important in a wide variety of settings, and the interaction between turbulence and mobile beds is a common feature across many fields of research. While much work has been done to understand and predict the onset of sediment motion in shear-driven turbulent boundary layers, there is limited information for cases in which the turbulence is dominant and mean shear is minimal. We performed an experiment to observe the failure of a subaqueous granular bed due to pressure fluctuations in an oscillatory flow above the bed. The amplitude and frequency of the oscillations are varied in order to determine how the intensity of the fluctuations influences the deformation of the bed. We find that there are intervals in frequency and amplitude that result in the development of a heap in the bed. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 4:01PM - 4:14PM |
D36.00008: Direct simulation of turbulent sediment-water interface Guangchen Shen, Junlin Yuan, Phanikumar Mantha Vertical transport processes across the sediment-water interface play a significant role in biogeochemical processes in aquatic ecosystems. Most numerical studies on residence time distribution and exchange flux and depth are based on the laminar-flow assumption or eddy-viscosity closures. Here, we use direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a turbulent open-channel flow with Reτ= 180 over a grain-resolved sediment bed, with a permeability Reynolds number of 2.56; the Reynolds shear stress dominates the viscous shear stress at the sediment-water interface. The goal is to analyze the link between macroscopic flow-exchange parameters and detailed flow physics. A sediment model similar to the one used in the experiments of Voermans, Ghisalberti and Ivey (2017) is used. The porous medium is modeled as randomly-packed, monodisperse hard spheres represented using an immersed boundary method. The random sphere packing is achieved through molecular dynamics simulations. Overall, single-point turbulence statistics agree with experimental measurements; the form-induced stresses are non-negligible near the interface, and are sensitive to the detailed packing near the sediment top. Discussions will be provided on the link between the overall exchange flux and detailed flow characteristics. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 4:14PM - 4:27PM |
D36.00009: Viscous Erosion of Porous Media Bryan Quaife, Nick Moore Fluid-mechanical erosion of solid materials occurs in many geological settings. One example is groundwater flow where the length and velocity scales are small, and the result is erosion of a porous media by a viscous fluid. Erosion creates channels of preferable flow direction and anisotropy, and standard groundwater flow models such as Darcy's Law are inappropriate. Therefore, we develop a numerical framework where individual grains are resolved. The method includes a fast-multipole-accelerated spectrally-accurate discretization of a boundary integral equation formulation, interface tracking that guarantees a uniform mesh for all time, and regularization terms that slight round-off sharp corners that erosion inevitably forms. |
Sunday, November 18, 2018 4:27PM - 4:40PM |
D36.00010: How shrinkable grains dry, crack, and heal: predicting these behaviors with three state variables H. Jeremy Cho, Michael P Howard, Nancy B Lu, Sujit S Datta Granular materials often crack when they dry, affecting the performance of structural materials, coatings, and geological formations. In many cases, the individual grains are porous and shrink as they dry. Here, we describe how this shrinkability influences crack evolution. Using a combination of poroelasticity theory, discrete-element simulations, and experiments, we find that cracking behavior can be predicted from three state variables that arise from the interplay between fluid transport, grain shrinkage, capillary cohesion, and substrate adhesion. Our results provide a way to control crack evolution and ultimately could pave a way to better manage drying-induced cracks in engineering applications. |
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