Modeling transport of soft particles in porous media
Modeling transport of soft particles in porous media
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DOI：
10.1103/physreve.104.025112
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发表时间：
2021-08-30
影响因子：
2.4
通讯作者：
Fan, Jing
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Li, Shuaijun;Yu, Hong-hui;Fan, Jing
在许多自然和工程过程中，流动驱动的软颗粒在多孔介质中的传输是普遍存在的，例如用于提高采收率的凝胶处理。在许多这样的过程中，注入的可变形颗粒堵塞了孔隙，从而增加了整体压降，降低了颗粒驻留区域的渗透率。宏观性质(如压降和渗透率)的变化是系统性能的重要指标，但有时无法测量。因此，希望将这些宏观属性与可测量或可控制的属性相关联。在这项工作中，我们使用广义毛细管束模型研究了多孔介质中软颗粒的流动驱动输运。通过将均匀的多孔介质模拟为沿流动方向具有周期性分布的收缩的平行毛细管，我们首先建立了压力的控制微分方程。通过求解该方程，给出了总压降与可测参数之间的定量关系，这些参数包括颗粒的浓度和硬度、颗粒与孔喉的尺寸比以及流量。还得到了由此产生的渗透率降低。结果表明，总压降和渗透率降低均与颗粒浓度和颗粒与孔喉的尺寸比成指数关系。在不超过两个拟合参数的情况下，我们的模型与几个已报道的实验显示出很好的一致性。这项工作不仅对理解软颗粒在多孔介质中的传输具有重要意义，而且为相关工业过程中选择最佳参数提供了重要的指导。
Flow-driven transport of soft particles in porous media is ubiquitous in many natural and engineering processes, such as the gel treatment for enhanced oil recovery. In many of these processes, injected deformable particles block the pores and thus increase the overall pressure drop and reduce the permeability of the particle-resided region. The change of macroscopic properties (e.g., pressure drop and permeability) is an important indicator of the system performance, yet sometimes impossible to be measured. Therefore, it is desirable to correlate these macroscopic properties with the measurable or controllable properties. In this work, we study flow-driven transport of soft particles in porous media using a generalized capillary bundle model. By modeling a homogeneous porous medium as parallel capillaries along the flow direction with periodically distributed constrictions, we first build a governing differential equation for pressure. Solving this equation gives a quantitative correlation between the total pressure drop and measurable parameters, including concentration and stiffness of particles, size ratio of particle to pore throat, and flow rate. The resultant permeability reduction is also obtained. Our results show that the total pressure drop and permeability reduction are both exponentially dependent on the particle concentration and the size ratio of particles to pore throat. With no more than two fitting parameters, our model shows excellent agreements with several reported experiments. The work not only sheds light on understanding transport of soft particles in porous media but also provides important guidance for choosing the optimal parameters in the relevant industrial processes.