Does Klinkenberg’s Law Survive Upscaling?

Abstract

This work deals with the large-scale mathematical modelling of flow of gas at low pressure in porous media. At the pore scale, this type of flow is characterised by a wall-slip effect, which at the sample scale entails a dependence of permeability upon gas pressure. This latter property is described by Klinkenberg's law. The goal of the present work is to examine the robustness of this law, by determining whether it is still verified on a large-scale: upscaling is thus applied, starting with Klinkenberg's law at the local scale. A Klinkenberg's flow of gas in a two-constituent composite porous medium is considered, and the constituents are firstly assumed to be homogeneous. The cases of low and of high permeability contrast are successively examined. Upscaling is performed using the homogenisation method of multiple scale expansions. In both cases, the large-scale permeability tensor differs from its liquid counterpart. Except in the particular case of equal Klinkenberg factors, Klinkenberg's law is not verified at low permeability contrast. At high permeability contrast, the large-scale gas permeability verifies Klinkenberg's law. The case of heterogeneous constituents is then examined. It is shown that the large-scale permeability differs from its liquid counterpart, but it does not verify Klinkenberg's law.