Local statistics of immiscible and incompressible two-phase flow in porous media

We consider immiscible and incompressible two-phase flow in porous media under steady-state conditions using a dynamic pore network model. We focus on the fluc-tuations in a Representative Elementary Area (REA), with the aim to demonstrate that the statistical distributions of the volumetric flow rate and the saturation within the REA become independent of the size of the entire model when the model is large enough. This independence is a necessary condition for developing a local statistical theory for the flow, which in turn opens for the possibility to formulate a description at scales large enough for the typical pore size to be negligible using differential equations.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

We investigate steady-state two-phase flow in porous media using a dynamic pore network model. Our study focuses on the statistical distributions of volumetric flow rate and saturation within a Representative Elementary Area (REA), and shows that these distributions become independent of the size of the entire model when it is sufficiently large. This independence is essential for developing a local statistical theory for the flow and allows for a description at scales where the pore size can be neglected using differential equations.