Eyvind Aker, Knut Jørgen Måløy
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
Alex Hansen
Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science
and Technology, N-7034 Trondheim, Norway
We have simulated the temporal evolution of pressure due to capillary and viscous forces in two-phase drainage in porous media. We analyze our result in light of macroscopic flow equations for two-phase flow. We also investigate the effect of the trapped clusters on the pressure evolution and on the effective permeability of the system. We find that the capillary forces play an important role during the displacements for both fast and slow injection rates and both when the invading fluid is more or less viscous than the defending fluid. The simulations are based on a network simulator modeling two-phase drainage displacements on a two-dimensional lattice of tubes.
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