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Emerging Advances in Modeling for Water Imbibition in Porous Media: A Multiscale Perspective

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydraulics and Hydrodynamics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 August 2023) | Viewed by 14204

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Shell Global Solutions International B.V., The Hague, The Netherlands
2. Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Interests: multiphase flow in porous media; micro-CT; Marangoni spreading; CT scanning; enhanced oil recovery

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water imbibition, a type of capillary-driven flow, is a ubiquitous physical phenomenon in natural and life porous media. The driving mechanism is highly dependent on the structure of the porous network. Water imbibition in porous media has attracted scientific interest in a broad variety of applications encompassing daily commodities and engineered systems at different scales. However, the existence of convoluted pore morphology, different wetting abilities, and interfacial forces pose many scientific complexities and challenges to the imbibition processes at different physical length scales. In this context, gaining an in-depth understanding of the physical principle and mechanism of multiscale imbibition in porous media is of great importance. Over the past few decades, much research has made significant breakthroughs and contributions to our understanding of the fundamentals/challenges of water imbibition in porous domains.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the recent advances on modeling for capillary-driven processes in porous media with a multiscale perspective on numerical and theoretical developments, along with applications to a diverse range of discipline.

Potential topics of interest mainly include, but are not limited to:

  1. The sub-pore scale picture including surface forces, roughness and (spatial) wettability distribution
  2. Novel (multi) pore-scale insights into the physics of capillarity – ranging from geometric state variable descriptions to a thermodynamic picture
  3. Upscaling from small to large scales, including aspects of pore-to-Darcy scale, REV, heterogeneity scales
  4. Novel modelling approaches including mathematical, numerical and multi-physics aspects
  5. Deep learning
  6. Applications

Prof. Dr. Jianchao Cai
Prof. Dr. Steffen Berg
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Imbibition
  • Capillarity
  • Multiscale
  • Wettability
  • Porous media

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 4136 KiB  
Article
Spontaneous Imbibition in a Fractal Network Model with Different Wettabilities
by Shaobin Cai, Li Zhang, Lixin Kang, Yongfei Yang, Wenlong Jing, Lei Zhang, Chao Xu, Hai Sun and Mozhdeh Sajjadi
Water 2021, 13(17), 2370; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13172370 - 29 Aug 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2543
Abstract
In this work, we derived a mathematical model for spontaneous imbibition in a Y-shaped branching network model. The classic Lucas–Washburn equation was used for modeling the imbibition process occurring in the Y-shape model. Then, a mathematical model for the Newtonian fluid’s imbibition was [...] Read more.
In this work, we derived a mathematical model for spontaneous imbibition in a Y-shaped branching network model. The classic Lucas–Washburn equation was used for modeling the imbibition process occurring in the Y-shape model. Then, a mathematical model for the Newtonian fluid’s imbibition was derived to reveal the relationship between dimensionless imbibition time and length ratio, radius ratio, and wetting strength. The dimensionless imbibition time in the model was adopted to compare with that of the capillary bundle model. Different length and radius ratios were considered in the adjacent two-stage channels, and different wettabilities were considered in the different branches. The optimal radius ratio, length ratio, and wetting strength were calculated under the condition of the shortest imbibition time. In addition, the shortest dimensionless imbibition time of the three-stage Y-shaped branching network model was calculated when the wettability changes randomly. The results indicate that the imbibition time changed mostly when the wettability of the second branch changed, and the second branch was the most sensitive to wettability in the model. Full article
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20 pages, 18864 KiB  
Article
Experimental Study on the Streaming Potential Phenomenon Response to Compactness and Salinity in Soil–Rock Mixture
by Xin Zhang, Mingjie Zhao and Kui Wang
Water 2021, 13(15), 2071; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13152071 - 29 Jul 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2484
Abstract
The study on the effect of material structure and solution properties on the streaming potential of the soil–rock mixture (SRM) will be beneficial for improving the reliability of the measurement results for self-potential monitoring in embankment dams. We design two experimental groups and [...] Read more.
The study on the effect of material structure and solution properties on the streaming potential of the soil–rock mixture (SRM) will be beneficial for improving the reliability of the measurement results for self-potential monitoring in embankment dams. We design two experimental groups and investigate the changes of potential and pressure during seepage of SRM (slightly clay materials) with different compactness and different concentration. The effects of the compaction degree and solution concentration on the streaming potential coupling coefficient and streaming potential were analyzed. The test results demonstrate that when the clay content in soil matrix is slight, the potential has a linear relationship with the hydraulic head difference, and seepage obeys Darcy’s law. The surface conductivity is negligible at 0.01 M (1 M corresponds to a concentration of 58.4 g L−1) salinity, the compactness of the SRM decreases (the permeability coefficient increases), the apparent streaming potential coupling coefficient and pressure difference decrease is the reason streaming potential decreases. The permeability coefficient of the SRM is not affected by the change in salinity (0.0001–1 M) at 85% compactness, and its seepage characteristics are related to the mineral composition, morphology and the thickness of the bound water layer (electric double layer). This study lays a foundation for further research on the self-potential method to monitor the structure of embankment dams. Full article
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15 pages, 16374 KiB  
Article
Determination of Unsaturated Hydraulic Properties of Seepage Flow Process in Municipal Solid Waste
by Chai Zhang, Bing Liang, Lei Liu, Yong Wan and Qichen Zhu
Water 2021, 13(8), 1059; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13081059 - 12 Apr 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2256
Abstract
The unsaturated hydraulic characteristics of waste soil are an essential basis for predicting and evaluating leachate migration and distribution in landfills. The saturated water content and permeability coefficient were measured, and a multi-step drainage monitoring experiment was conducted indoors at different dry densities, [...] Read more.
The unsaturated hydraulic characteristics of waste soil are an essential basis for predicting and evaluating leachate migration and distribution in landfills. The saturated water content and permeability coefficient were measured, and a multi-step drainage monitoring experiment was conducted indoors at different dry densities, particle sizes, and degradation ages. Single and dual permeability models were adopted to determine the unsaturated hydraulic characteristic parameters of waste. Results show that dry density and particle size are the key factors affecting the saturated water content and permeability of waste. A single degradation age has little effect on it. Respectively, the saturated water content has a linear relationship with dry density, and permeability has an exponential relationship with dry density under limited experimental data. The overflow numerical inversion method can accurately obtain the unsaturated hydraulic characteristic parameters of wastes and summarizes the values of the unsaturated hydraulic characteristic parameters of wastes with different attributes in the literature and the results of this study. The dual-permeability model performed significantly better than the single-permeability model for water movement, suggesting that a dual-domain description is required for water flow in landfills. Full article
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22 pages, 10335 KiB  
Article
Phase-Field Simulation of Imbibition for the Matrix-Fracture of Tight Oil Reservoirs Considering Temperature Change
by Junjie Shi, Linsong Cheng, Renyi Cao, Zhihao Jia and Gaoling Liu
Water 2021, 13(7), 1004; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13071004 - 6 Apr 2021
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3808
Abstract
Injection water temperature is often different from that of the reservoir during water injection development in the tight reservoir. Temperature change causes different fluid properties and oil-water interface properties, which further affects the imbibition process. In this paper, a matrix-fracture non-isothermal oil-water imbibition [...] Read more.
Injection water temperature is often different from that of the reservoir during water injection development in the tight reservoir. Temperature change causes different fluid properties and oil-water interface properties, which further affects the imbibition process. In this paper, a matrix-fracture non-isothermal oil-water imbibition flow model in tight reservoirs is established and solved by the finite element method based on the phase-field method. The ideal inhomogeneous rock structure model was used to study the influence of a single factor on the imbibition. The actual rock structure model was used to study the influence of temperature. The mechanism of temperature influence in the process of imbibition is studied from the micro-level. It is found that the imbibition of matrix-fracture is a process in which the water enters the matrix along with the small pores, and the oil is driven into the macropores and then into the fractures. Temperature affects the imbibition process by changing the oil-water contact angle, oil-water interfacial tension, and oil-water viscosity ratio. Reducing oil-water contact angle and oil-water viscosity ratio and increasing oil-water interfacial tension are conducive to the imbibition process. The increase in injection water temperature is usually beneficial to the occurrence of the imbibition. Moreover, the actual core structure imbibition degree is often lower than that of the ideal core structure. The inhomogeneous distribution of rock particles has a significant influence on imbibition. This study provides microscale theoretical support for seeking reasonable injection velocity, pressure gradient, injection temperature, and well-shutting time in the field process. It provides a reference for the formulation of field process parameters. Full article
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