Measurement of interfacial area per volume for drainage and imbibition

[1] We investigate experimentally the functional relationship between capillary pressure, P c , wetting phase saturation, S w , and interfacial area per volume between the wetting and nonwetting phases, a wn , for drainage and imbibition processes in micromodels of two-dimensional pore structures. Within the experimental and analysis error (around 10-15%), the resulting P c -S w -a wn surfaces were the same. This suggests that data obtained from either the drainage process or the imbibition process are sufficient to generate the complete functional relationship among P c -S w -a wn and that the observed hysteresis in P c -S w -a wn can be modeled by including interfacial area as an additional state variable.

[1]  Michael A. Celia,et al.  Modeling support of functional relationships between capillary pressure, saturation, interfacial area and common lines , 2001 .

[2]  Michael A. Celia,et al.  A Functional Relationship Between Capillary Pressure, Saturation, and Interfacial Area as Revealed by a Pore‐Scale Network Model , 1996 .

[3]  Michael D. Annable,et al.  Measurement of Specific Fluid−Fluid Interfacial Areas of Immiscible Fluids in Porous Media , 1997 .

[4]  William G. Gray,et al.  Interfacial area measurements for unsaturated flow through a porous medium , 2004 .

[5]  F. Brissaud,et al.  Evolution of Capillarity and Relative Permeability Hysteresis , 1972 .

[6]  David D. Nolte,et al.  Linking pressure and saturation through interfacial areas in porous media , 2004 .

[7]  P. Rao,et al.  Determination of effective air‐water interfacial area in partially saturated porous media using surfactant adsorption , 1997 .

[8]  F. Leij,et al.  Estimating interfacial areas for multi-fluid soil systems , 1997 .

[9]  Markus Hilpert,et al.  Computation of the interfacial area for two-fluid porous medium systems. , 2002, Journal of contaminant hydrology.

[10]  G. C. Topp,et al.  Soil-Water Hysteresis Measured in a Sandy Loam and Compared with the Hysteretic Domain Model1 , 1969 .

[11]  J. Parlange,et al.  Simplified thermodynamic model for equilibrium capillary pressure in a fractal porous medium. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[12]  M. Brusseau,et al.  Air‐water interfacial areas in unsaturated soils: Evaluation of interfacial domains , 2002 .

[13]  R. Seright,et al.  Porous structure and fluid partitioning in polyethylene cores from 3D X-ray microtomographic imaging. , 2006, Journal of colloid and interface science.

[14]  H. Gvirtzman,et al.  Pore scale spatial analysis of two immiscible fluids in porous media , 1991 .

[15]  M. Brusseau,et al.  Erratum: Air-water interfacial areas in unsaturated soils: Evaluation of interfacial domains (Water Resources Research (2003) 39:4 (1091) DOI: 10.1029/2003WR002018) , 2003 .

[16]  William G. Gray,et al.  Mechanics and thermodynamics of multiphase flow in porous media including interphase boundaries , 1990 .

[17]  Norman R. Morrow,et al.  Capillary Equilibrium in Porous Materials , 1965 .

[18]  Tohren C G Kibbey,et al.  Measurement of air-water interfacial area for multiple hysteretic drainage curves in an unsaturated fine sand. , 2006, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[19]  F. Leij,et al.  Estimating interfacial areas systems for multi-fluid soil , 2003 .

[20]  R. E. Collins.  Flow of fluids through porous materials , 1961 .

[21]  R. Lenhard,et al.  Measurement and modeling of three-phase saturation-pressure hysteresis , 1992 .

[22]  William G. Gray,et al.  Approximation of interfacial properties in multiphase porous medium systems , 2007 .

[23]  William G. Gray,et al.  Thermodynamic basis of capillary pressure in porous media , 1993 .

[24]  William G. Gray,et al.  Pore-scale characteristics of multiphase flow in porous media: A comparison of air–water and oil–water experiments , 2006 .