Publications

Gravity destabilized non-wetting phase invasion in macro-heterogeneous porous media: Near pore scale macro modified invasion percolation simulation of experiments

Glass, Robert J.; Conrad, Stephen H.; Yarrington, Lane Y.

The authors reconceptualize macro modified invasion percolation (MMIP) at the near pore (NP) scale and apply it to simulate the non-wetting phase invasion experiments of Glass et al [in review] conducted in macro-heterogeneous porous media. For experiments where viscous forces were non-negligible, they redefine the total pore filling pressure to include viscous losses within the invading phase as well as the viscous influence to decrease randomness imposed by capillary forces at the front. NP-MMIP exhibits the complex invasion order seen experimentally with characteristic alternations between periods of gravity stabilized and destabilized invasion growth controlled by capillary barriers. The breaching of these barriers and subsequent pore scale fingering of the non-wetting phase is represented extremely well as is the saturation field evolution, and total volume invaded.