Mechanism behind Erosive Bursts In Porous Media

R. Jäger, M. Mendoza, and H. J. Herrmann
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 124501 – Published 18 September 2017
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Abstract

Erosion and deposition during flow through porous media can lead to large erosive bursts that manifest as jumps in permeability and pressure loss. Here we reveal that the cause of these bursts is the reopening of clogged pores when the pressure difference between two opposite sites of the pore surpasses a certain threshold. We perform numerical simulations of flow through porous media and compare our predictions to experimental results, recovering with excellent agreement shape and power-law distribution of pressure loss jumps, and the behavior of the permeability jumps as a function of particle concentration. Furthermore, we find that erosive bursts only occur for pressure gradient thresholds within the range of two critical values, independent of how the flow is driven. Our findings provide a better understanding of sudden sand production in oil wells and breakthrough in filtration.

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  • Received 8 June 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.124501

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Fluid Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

R. Jäger*, M. Mendoza, and H. J. Herrmann

  • ETH Zürich, Computational Physics for Engineering Materials, Institute for Building Materials, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, HIT, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland

  • *jaegerr@ethz.ch
  • mmendoza@ethz.ch
  • hjherrmann@ethz.ch

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Issue

Vol. 119, Iss. 12 — 22 September 2017

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