Understanding how fluids occupy and migrate through porous media is of great importance in geological fields such as hydrology and environmental engineering. Two-phase flow in porous geo-materials is influenced by the connectivity and geometry of the pore space, as well as by solid/fluid/fluid interactions. We are interested in the relation between pore space morphology and averaged properties like relative permeability and capillary pressure, as well as capillary trapping of the non-wetting phase and hysteresis in drainage/imbibition cycles.
ANIMATION: A non-wetting phase (kerosene, rendered in red) replacing brine (not visualized) in a Bentheimer sandstone which was initially completely brine-saturated. The process was imaged continuously at 12 seconds per scan with UGCT’s EMCT scanner, while the non-wetting phase was continuously pumped in.
ANIMATION: Dynamic micro-CT scan (12 seconds per scan) of CsCl brine being pumped in a 6 mm diameter limestone sample.
Applications
Water/CO2 in subsurface CO2 sequestration
Water/non-aqueous phase liquid in environmental engineering
Techniques
Experimental approach: fast lab-based micro-CT (on the sub-minute time scale) and image-based pore network models.