Visualizing oil displacement by nanofluids at pore scale: A concentration-dependent nanofluid spreading induced by structural disjoining pressure

Abstract

Multiphase flow is a common scenario in industrial and environmental applications. Especially at microscopic scale, accurately describing flow processes is challenging due to fluid-fluid, fluid-solid, and solid-solid interactions. Pore-scale microfluidics and numerical simulation methods considering complex topology are increasingly being applied to study multiphase flow phenomena. This work focuses the recent applications of microfluidic experiments and new numerical simulations in complex flows for enhanced oil recovery. Two types of coupling algorithms are provided to integrate the advantages of pore network model and direct numerical simulation methods. For fines migration, the computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method is proposed to describe the coupling process between fluid and solid particles. Pore-scale microfluidic experiments and simulation methods deals with complex flow processes at micro/nano scales, providing effective solutions for complex industrial processes.