Stability of gravity‐driven multiphase flow in porous media: 40 Years of advancements

Abstract

Gravity‐driven multiphase flow in porous media is ubiquitous in the geophysical world; the classic case in hydrology is vertical infiltration of precipitation into a soil. For homogenous porous media, infiltrations are sometimes observed to be stable and laterally uniform, but other times are observed to be unstable and produce preferential flow paths. Since Saffman and Taylor (1958), researchers have attempted to define criteria that determine instability. Saffman and Taylor's analysis consisted of two regions of single phase flow, while Parlange and Hill (1976) integrated this analysis with the multiphase flow equations to provide testable predictions. In the subsequent 40 years, great advances have been made determining the complex interactions between multiphase flow and instability. Theoretically, the stability of the standard multiphase flow equations has been verified, showing the necessity of extensions to the multiphase flow equations to describe the observed unstable flow. Experimentally, it has been shown that the instability is related to a phenomena in 1‐D infiltrations called saturation or pressure overshoot. In this review, the connection between overshoot and instability is detailed, and it is described how models of overshoot can simplify the analysis of current and future models of instability and multiphase flow.