<title>Large-scale simulations of single- and multicomponent flow in porous media</title>

Abstract

We examine the utility of the lattice Boltzmann method for modeling fluid flow in large microstructures. First, results of permeability calculations are compared to predicted values for several idealized geometries. Large scale simulations of fluid flow through digitized images of Fontainebleau sandstone, generated by X-ray microtomography, were then carried out. Reasonably good agreement was found when compared to experimentally determined values of permeability for similar rocks. We also calculate relative permeability curves as a function of fluid saturation and driving force. The Onsager relation, which equates off-diagonal components of the permeability tensor for two phase flow, is shown not to hold for intermediate to low nonwetting saturation, since the response of the fluid flow to an applied body force was nonlinear. Values of permeability from three phase flows are compared to corresponding two phase values. Performance on several computing platforms is given.

Solution of flow around complex‐shaped surfaces by an immersed boundary‐body conformal enrichment method

“…The results are compared with those of Chapman and Higdon [27]. Similar results were reported by Martys et al [26] using a lattice Boltzmann method. As can be seen, the permeability decreases as the solid fraction increases, reaching a value close to 0 when the solid fraction approaches the maximum value of 1.…”

Calculating structural and geometrical parameters by laboratory measurements and X-ray microtomography: a comparative study applied to a limestone sample before and after a dissolution experiment

“…3-D data provides access to some very important geometric and topological characteristics such as size, shape, orientation distribution of individual features and that of their local neighbourhoods, connectivity between features and network, composition, etc. Computational techniques have progressed to the point where material properties such as conductivity (Arns et al, 2001), diffusivity (Schwartz et al, 1994;Knackstedt et al, 2006;Promentilla et al, 2009;Gouze and Luquot, 2011), permeability (Martys et al, 1999;Arns et al, 2004;Arns et al, 2005a;Arns et al, 2005b), pore-size distribution (Dunsmuir et al, 1991;Prodanovic et al, 2010;Garing et al, 2014;Luquot et al, 2014a) and linear elasticity (Roberts and Garboczi, 2000;Arns et al, 2002;Knackstedt et al, 2006) can be calculated on large threedimensional digitized grids (over 10 9 voxels). More details on this technique, acquisition and data computing step can be found in Taina et al (2008); Cnudde and Boone (2013) and Wildenschild and Sheppard (2013).…”

Multiphase lattice Boltzmann simulations for porous media applications

“…Furthermore, in the LBM all computations involve, only local variables enabling highly efficient parallel implementations based on simple domain decomposition [37]. With more powerful computers becoming available, it was possible to perform detailed simulations of flow in artificially generated geometries [5,[38][39][40], tomographic reconstructions of sandstone samples [29,[41][42][43][44], or fibrous sheets of paper [45].…”