Burst dynamics during drainage displacements in porous media: Simulations and experiments

E. Aker ^1,2 - K. J. Måløy ¹ - A. Hansen ² - S. Basak ³

 ¹ Department of Physics, University of Oslo - N-0316 Oslo, Norway
 ² Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
N-7491 Trondheim, Norway
 ³ Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF Bidhannagar - Calcutta 700064, India

Abstract:

We investigate the burst dynamics during drainage going from low to high injection rate at various fluid viscosities. The bursts are identified as pressure drops in the pressure signal across the system. We find that the statistical distribution of pressure drops scales according to other systems exhibiting self-organized criticality. The pressure signal was calculated by a network model that properly simulates drainage displacements. We compare our results with corresponding experiments.