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An Alternative Description of Viscous Coupling in Two-Phase Flow through Porous Media

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Abstract

A new formalism is developed to describe the viscous coupling phenomena between two immiscible, flowing fluids in porous media. The formulation is based on the notation of ‘two-phase mixture’ in which the relative motion between an individual phase and the mixture in porous media can be described by a diffusion equation. The present formulation is derived from Darcy's law with cross-terms without making further approximations. However, the new formulation requires fewer effective parameters to be determined experimentally, thus offering a more viable tool for the study of two-phase flow dynamics with viscous coupling in porous media. Moreover, it is found that no new term appears in the present model in cases with and without viscous coupling; instead, the incorporation of viscous coupling only modifies the effective parameters. It can thus be concluded that viscous coupling does not represent a fundamentally new phenomenon within the framework of the present formulation.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, U.S.A

    C. Y. Wang

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  1. C. Y. Wang
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Wang, C.Y. An Alternative Description of Viscous Coupling in Two-Phase Flow through Porous Media. Transport in Porous Media 28, 205–219 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006514204336

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