Pore Scale Simulation of Flow in Porous Media Using Lattice-Boltzmann Computer Simulations

Abstract

AbstractWe describe the ongoing development of lattice-Boltzmann (LB) computer simulation codes to study flow in porous media at the pore scale. LB simulations have evolved over the past decade and are now used as a tool to calculate both single- and multi-phase flow properties directly at the pore scale using X-ray Micro Tomography (XMT) pore space images. We will review the development of our codes to study flow in two-dimensional micro-models, viscous fingering, chemical reactions, hydrodynamic dispersion and non-Newtonian flow. In three dimensions, we have developed our codes to calculate the flow in XMT images of the pore space, for both single- and multi-phase flow, resulting in predictions of the permeability. Very recently, we have extended the multi-phase flow model to include surfactants for reduction of the interfacial tension and wettability alteration.