Effects of Cassie-Wenzel wetting transition on two-phase flow in porous media

Abstract

Wettability is one of the most important factors affecting multiphase flow in porous media. In this study, effects of the dynamic wetting process on two-phase flow displacement are investigated at the pore scale. A time-dependent Cassie-Wenzel wetting transition model is improved and incorporated into the pseudopotential multiphase multicomponent lattice Boltzmann model. With the Cassie-Wenzel wetting transition considered, two-phase flow displacement is simulated in Voronoi porous media with structural disorder and layered characteristics under different capillary number and wetting transition characteristic time. The simulation results show that the wetting transition promotes cooperative pore filling and weakens the effect of nonuniformity of capillary resistance. Under different capillary number, increased wetting transition rate improves the wettability of invading fluid, and thus the saturation of invading fluid is increased. The results also show that the layered structure with decreased pore size along the flow direction compacts the displacement pattern and weakens the viscous fingering, leading to higher displacement efficiency. While in this layered structure, effects of the wetting transition are suppressed due to lower interfacial length between the invading fluid and solid surface. The simulation results provide new insights of the influence of the dynamic wetting transition and on fluid displacement in porous media.