Spatial Fluctuations Of Fluid Velocities In Flow Through A Three-Dimensional Porous Medium
Soft Condensed Matter
2013-08-07 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Fluid Dynamics
Geophysics
Abstract
We use confocal microscopy to directly visualize the spatial fluctuations in fluid flow through a three-dimensional porous medium. We find that the velocity magnitudes and the velocity components both along and transverse to the imposed flow direction are exponentially distributed, even with residual trapping of a second immiscible fluid. Moreover, we find pore-scale correlations in the flow that are determined by the geometry of the medium. Our results suggest that, despite the considerable complexity of the pore space, fluid flow through it is not completely random.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1307.4539,
title = {Spatial Fluctuations Of Fluid Velocities In Flow Through A Three-Dimensional Porous Medium},
author = {Sujit S. Datta and Harry Chiang and T. S. Ramakrishnan and David A. Weitz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1307.4539},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
In press, Physical Review Letters