Buckley–Leverett Theory for Two-Phase Immiscible Fluids Flow Model with Explicit Phase-Coupling Terms

The theory of two-phase immiscible flow in porous media is based on the extension of single phase models through the concept of relative permeabilities. It mimics Darcy’s law for a fixed average saturation through the introduction of saturation-based permeabilities to model the momentum exchange bet...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dominique Guérillot, Mostafa Kadiri, Saber Trabelsi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
Series:Water
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/11/3041
Description
Summary:The theory of two-phase immiscible flow in porous media is based on the extension of single phase models through the concept of relative permeabilities. It mimics Darcy’s law for a fixed average saturation through the introduction of saturation-based permeabilities to model the momentum exchange between the phases. In this paper, we present a model of two-phase flow, based on the extension of Darcy’s law including the effect of capillary pressure, but considering in addition the coupling between the phases modeled through flow cross-terms. In this work, we extend the Buckley–Leverett theory to the subsequent model, and provide numerical experiments shading the light on the effect of the coupling cross-terms in comparison to the classical Darcy’s approach.
ISSN:2073-4441