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Article
Publication date: 9 June 2023

Chongbin Zhao, B.E. Hobbs and Alison Ord

The objective of this paper is to establish a solution strategy for obtaining dual solutions, namely trivial (conventional) and nontrivial (unconventional) solutions, of coupled…

Abstract

Purpose

The objective of this paper is to establish a solution strategy for obtaining dual solutions, namely trivial (conventional) and nontrivial (unconventional) solutions, of coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution problems in heterogeneous porous media.

Design/methodology/approach

Through applying a perturbation to the pore-fluid velocity, original governing partial differential equations of a coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution problem in heterogeneous porous media are transformed into perturbed ones, which are then solved by using the semi-analytical finite element method. Through switching off and on the applied perturbation terms in the resulting perturbed governing partial differential equations, both the trivial and nontrivial solutions can be obtained for the original governing partial differential equations of the coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution problem in fluid-saturated heterogeneous porous media.

Findings

When a coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution system is in a stable state, the trivial and nontrivial solutions of the system are identical. However, if a coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution system is in an unstable state, then the trivial and nontrivial solutions of the system are totally different. This recognition can be equally used to judge whether a coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution system involving heterogeneous porous media is in a stable state or in an unstable state. The proposed solution strategy can produce dual solutions for simulating coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution problems in fluid-saturated heterogeneous porous media.

Originality/value

A solution strategy is proposed to obtain the nontrivial solution, which is often overlooked in the computational simulation of coupled pore-fluid flow and chemical dissolution problems in fluid-saturated heterogeneous porous media. The proposed solution strategy provides a useful way for understanding the underlying dynamic mechanisms of the chemical damage effect associated with the stability of structures that are built on soil foundations.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 40 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 15 May 2009

B. Markicevic and H.K. Navaz

The purpose of this paper is to develop a general numerical solution for the wetting fluid spread into porous media that can be used in solving of droplet spread into soils…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a general numerical solution for the wetting fluid spread into porous media that can be used in solving of droplet spread into soils, printing applications, fuel cells, composite processing.

Design/methodology/approach

A discrete capillary network model based on micro‐force balance is numerically implemented and the flow for an arbitrary capillary number can be solved. At the fluid interface, the boundary condition that accounts for the capillary pressure jump is used.

Findings

The wetting fluid spread into porous medium starts as a single‐phase flow, and after some particular number of the porous medium characteristic length scales, the multi‐phase flow pattern occurs. Hence, in the principal flow direction, the phase content (saturation) decreases, and in the lower limit for the capillary number sufficiently small, the saturation should become constant. This qualitative saturation behavior is observed irrespective of the flow dimensionality, whereas the quantitative results vary for different flow systems.

Research limitations/implications

The numerical solution has to be expanded to solve the spread of the fluid in the porous medium after there is no free fluid left at the porous medium surface.

Practical implications

It is shown that the multi‐phase flow can develop even on a small domain due to the porous medium heterogeneity. Neglecting the medium heterogeneity and flow type can lead to a large error as shown for the droplet spread time in the porous medium.

Originality/value

This is believe to be the only paper relating to solving the droplet spread into porous medium as a multi‐phase flow problem.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 19 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 March 2021

Abdelraheem M. Aly and Ehab Mahmoud Mohamed

This study aims to illustrate the impacts of the motion of circular cylinders on the natural convection flow from variable heated partitions inside the X-shaped cavity filled with…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to illustrate the impacts of the motion of circular cylinders on the natural convection flow from variable heated partitions inside the X-shaped cavity filled with Al2O3-water nanofluid. A partial layer of a homogeneous/heterogeneous porous medium is located in the top area of the X-shaped cavity.

Design/methodology/approach

Three different cases of the porous media including homogeneous, horizontal heterogeneous and vertical heterogeneous porous media were considered. Three different thermal conditions of the embedded circular cylinders including hot, cold and adiabatic conditions are investigated. An incompressible scheme of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (ISPH) method is modified to compute the non-linear partial differential equations of the current problem. Two variable lengths of the left and right sides of the X-shaped cavity have a high-temperature Th and a low-temperature Tc, respectively. The other wall parts are adiabatic. The numerical simulations are elucidating the dependence of the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics on lengths of hot/cold source Lh, porous cases, Darcy parameter, thermal conditions of the embedded circular cylinders and solid volume fraction.

Findings

Overall, an increment in length of hot/cold source leads to augmentation on the temperature distributions and flow intensity inside the X-shaped cavity. The hot thermal condition of the circular cylinder augments the temperature distributions. The homogeneous porous medium slows down the flow speed in the top porous layer of the X-shaped cavity. The average Nusselt number decreases as Lh increases.

Originality/value

ISPH method simulated the motion of circular cylinders in the X-shaped cavity. The X-shaped cavity is saturated with a partial layer porous medium. It is found that an increase in hot source length augments the temperature and fluid flow. ISPH method can easily handle the motion of cylinders in the X-shaped cavity. Different thermal conditions of cylinders can change the temperature distributions in X-cavity.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 31 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 October 2019

Qian Li, Weihua Cai, Xiaojing Tang, Yicheng Chen, Bingxi Li and Ching-Yao Chen

The aim of this study is to numerically simulate the density-driven convection in heterogeneous porous media associated with anisotropic permeability field, which is important to…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study is to numerically simulate the density-driven convection in heterogeneous porous media associated with anisotropic permeability field, which is important to the safe and stable long term CO2 storage in laminar saline aquifers.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses compact finite difference and the pseudospectral method to solve Darcy’s law.

Findings

The presence of heterogeneous anisotropy may result in non-monotonic trend of the breakthrough time and quantity of CO2 dissolved in the porous medium, which are important to the CO2 underground storage.

Originality/value

The manuscript numerically study the convective phenomena of mixture contained CO2 and brine. The phenomena are important to the process of CO2 enhanced oil recovery. Interesting qualitative patterns and quantitative trends are revealed in the manuscript.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 30 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 February 2021

Abdelraheem M. Aly and Zehba Raizah

The purpose of this study is to simulate the thermo-solutal convection resulting from a circular cylinder hanging in a rod inside a ∧-shaped cavity.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to simulate the thermo-solutal convection resulting from a circular cylinder hanging in a rod inside a ∧-shaped cavity.

Design/methodology/approach

The two dimensional ∧-shaped cavity is filled by Al2O3-water nanofluid and saturated by three different levels of heterogeneous porous media. An incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics (ISPH) method is adopted to solve the governing equations of the present problem. The present simulations have been performed for the alteration of buoyancy ratio (2N2), radius of a circular cylinder (0.05Rc0.3), a height of a rod (0.1Lh0.4), Darcy parameter (103Da105), Lewis number (1Le40), solid volume fraction (0ϕ0.06), porous levels (0η1=η21.5)and various boundary-wall conditions.

Findings

The performed numerical simulations indicated the importance of embedded shapes on the distributions of temperature, concentration and velocity fields inside ∧-shaped cavity. Increasing buoyancy ratio parameter enhances thermo-solutal convection and nanofluid velocity. Adiabatic conditions of the vertical-walls of ∧-shaped cavity augment the distributions of the temperature and concentration. Regardless the Darcy parameter, a homogeneous porous medium gives the lowest values of a nanofluid velocity.

Originality/value

ISPH method is used to simulate thermo-solutal convection of a nanofluid inside a novel ∧-shaped cavity containing a novel embedded shape and heterogeneous porous media.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 31 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 September 2020

Shishir Gupta, Soumik Das and Rachaita Dutta

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mathematical model comprising a heterogeneous fluid-saturated fissured porous layer overlying a non-homogeneous anisotropic…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mathematical model comprising a heterogeneous fluid-saturated fissured porous layer overlying a non-homogeneous anisotropic fluid-saturated porous half-space without fissures. The influence of point source on horizontally polarized shear-wave (SH-wave) propagation has been studied intensely.

Design/methodology/approach

Techniques of Green’s function and Fourier transform are applied to acquire displacement components, and with the help of boundary conditions, complex frequency equation has been constructed.

Findings

Complex frequency relation leads to two distinct equations featuring dispersion and attenuation properties of SH-wave in a heterogeneous fissured porous medium. Using MATHEMATICA software, dispersion and damping curves are sketched to disclose the effects of heterogeneity parameters associated with both media, parameters related to rigidity and density of single porous half-space, attenuation coefficient, wave velocity, total porosity, volume fraction of fissures and anisotropy. The fact of obtaining classical Love wave equation by introducing several particular conditions establishes the validation of the considered model.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, effect of point source on SH-wave propagating in porous layer containing macro as well as micro porosity is not analysed so far, although theory of fissured poroelasticity itself has vast applications in real life and impact of point source not only enhances the importance of fissured porous materials but also opens a new area for future research.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 38 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 July 2019

Jingfa Li, Tao Zhang, Shuyu Sun and Bo Yu

This paper aims to present an efficient IMPES algorithm based on a global model order reduction method, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), to achieve the fast solution and…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present an efficient IMPES algorithm based on a global model order reduction method, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), to achieve the fast solution and prediction of two-phase flows in porous media.

Design/methodology/approach

The key point of the proposed algorithm is to establish an accurate POD reduced-order model (ROM) for two-phase porous flows. To this end, two projection methods including projecting the original governing equations (Method I) and projecting the discrete form of original governing equations (Method II) are respectively applied to construct the POD-ROM, and their distinctions are compared and analyzed in detail. It is found the POD-ROM established by Method I is inapplicable to multiphase porous flows due to its failed introduction of fluid saturation and permeability that locate on the edge of grid cell, which would lead to unphysical results.

Findings

By using Method II, an efficient IMPES algorithm that can substantially speed up the simulation of two-phase porous flows is developed based on the POD-ROM. The computational efficiency and numerical accuracy of the proposed algorithm are validated through three numerical examples, and simulation results illustrate that the proposed algorithm displays satisfactory computational speed-up (one to two orders of magnitude) without sacrificing numerical accuracy obviously when comparing to the standard IMPES algorithm that without any acceleration technique. In addition, the determination of POD modes number, the relative errors of wetting phase pressure and saturation, and the influence of POD modes number on the overall performances of the proposed algorithm, are investigated.

Originality/value

1. Two projection methods are applied to establish the POD-ROM for two-phase porous flows and their distinctions are analyzed. The reason why POD-ROM is difficult to be applied to multiphase porous flows is clarified firstly in this study. 2. A highly efficient IMPES algorithm based on the POD-ROM is proposed to accelerate the simulation of two-phase porous flows. 3. Satisfactory computational speed-up (one to two orders of magnitude) and prediction accuracy of the proposed algorithm are observed under different conditions.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 29 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 April 2024

Kunpeng Shi, Guodong Jin, Weichao Yan and Huilin Xing

Accurately evaluating fluid flow behaviors and determining permeability for deforming porous media is time-consuming and remains challenging. This paper aims to propose a novel…

Abstract

Purpose

Accurately evaluating fluid flow behaviors and determining permeability for deforming porous media is time-consuming and remains challenging. This paper aims to propose a novel machine-learning method for the rapid estimation of permeability of porous media at different deformation stages constrained by hydro-mechanical coupling analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

A convolutional neural network (CNN) is proposed in this paper, which is guided by the results of finite element coupling analysis of equilibrium equation for mechanical deformation and Boltzmann equation for fluid dynamics during the hydro-mechanical coupling process [denoted as Finite element lattice Boltzmann model (FELBM) in this paper]. The FELBM ensures the Lattice Boltzmann analysis of coupled fluid flow with an unstructured mesh, which varies with the corresponding nodal displacement resulting from mechanical deformation. It provides reliable label data for permeability estimation at different stages using CNN.

Findings

The proposed CNN can rapidly and accurately estimate the permeability of deformable porous media, significantly reducing processing time. The application studies demonstrate high accuracy in predicting the permeability of deformable porous media for both the test and validation sets. The corresponding correlation coefficients (R2) is 0.93 for the validation set, and the R2 for the test set A and test set B are 0.93 and 0.94, respectively.

Originality/value

This study proposes an innovative approach with the CNN to rapidly estimate permeability in porous media under dynamic deformations, guided by FELBM coupling analysis. The fast and accurate performance of CNN underscores its promising potential for future applications.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 June 2023

Ailian Chang, Le Huang, Qian-Qian Li, Kambiz Vafai and Minglu Shao

The classical advection-dispersion equation (ADE) model cannot accurately depict the gas transport process in natural geological formations. This paper aims to study the behavior…

Abstract

Purpose

The classical advection-dispersion equation (ADE) model cannot accurately depict the gas transport process in natural geological formations. This paper aims to study the behavior of CO2 transport in fractal porous media by using an effective Hausdorff fractal derivative advection-dispersion equation (HFDADE) model.

Design/methodology/approach

Anomalous dispersion behaviors of CO2 transport are effectively characterized by the investigation of time and space Hausdorff derivatives on non-Euclidean fractal metrics. The numerical simulation has been performed with different Hausdorff fractal dimensions to reveal characteristics of the developed fractal ADE in fractal porous media. Numerical experiments focus on the influence of the time and space fractal dimensions on flow velocity and dispersion coefficient.

Findings

The physical mechanisms of parameters in the Hausdorff fractal derivative model are analyzed clearly. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed model can well fit the history of gas production data and it can be a powerful technique for depicting the early arrival and long-tailed phenomenon by incorporating a fractal dimension.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, first time these results are presented.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 33 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 March 2015

Wei Huang, Sima Didari, Yan Wang and Tequila A.L. Harris

Fibrous porous media have a wide variety of applications in insulation, filtration, acoustics, sensing, and actuation. To design such materials, computational modeling methods are…

Abstract

Purpose

Fibrous porous media have a wide variety of applications in insulation, filtration, acoustics, sensing, and actuation. To design such materials, computational modeling methods are needed to engineer the properties systematically. There is a lack of efficient approaches to build and modify those complex structures in computers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors generalize a previously developed periodic surface (PS) model so that the detailed shapes of fibers in porous media can be modeled. Because of its periodic and implicit nature, the generalized PS model is able to efficiently construct the three-dimensional representative volume element (RVE) of randomly distributed fibers. A physics-based empirical force field method is also developed to model the fiber bending and deformation.

Findings

Integrated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis tools, the proposed approach enables simulation-based design of fibrous porous media.

Research limitations/implications

In the future, the authors will investigate robust approaches to export meshes of PS models directly to CFD simulation tools and develop geometric modeling methods for composite materials that include both fibers and resin.

Originality/value

The proposed geometric modeling method with implicit surfaces to represent fibers is unique in its capability of modeling bent and deformed fibers in a RVE and supporting design parameter-based modification for global configuration change for the purpose of macroscopic transport property analysis.

Details

Engineering Computations, vol. 32 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-4401

Keywords

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