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Convective mixing in homogeneous porous media flow

Jia-Hau Ching1,2, Peilong Chen2, and Peichun Amy Tsai1,*

  • 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G8, Canada
  • 2Department of Physics, National Central University, Zhongli 320, Taiwan

  • *peichun.amy.tsai@ualberta.ca
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 2, 014102 – Published 31 January, 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.014102

Abstract

Inspired by the flow processes in the technology of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in saline formations, we modeled a homogeneous porous media flow in a Hele-Shaw cell to investigate density-driven convection due to dissolution. We used an analogy of the fluid system to mimic the diffusion and subsequent convection when CO2 dissolves in brine, which generates a heavier solution. By varying the permeability, we examined the onset of convection, the falling dynamics, the wavelengths of fingers, and the rate of dissolution, for the Rayleigh number Ra (a dimensionless forcing term which is the ratio of buoyancy to diffusivity) in the range of 2.0×104≤Ra≤8.26×105. Our results reveal that the effect of permeability influences significantly the initial convective speed, as well as the later coarsening dynamics of the heavier fingering plumes. However, the total dissolved mass, characterized by a nondimensional Nusselt number Nu, has an insignificant dependence on Ra. This implies that the total dissolution rate of CO2 is nearly constant in high Ra geological porous structures.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 2, 014102– Published 31 January, 2017
  • Received 21 July 2016

©2017 American Physical Society

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