Morphodynamics of Fluid-Fluid Displacement in Three-Dimensional Deformable Granular Media

• Main Authors: Dalbe, Marie Julie Elise (Contributor), Juanes, Ruben (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Physical Society, 2018-04-19T19:45:30Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

We study experimentally the displacement of one fluid by another in a granular pack to uncover relationships between fluid invasion and medium deformation. We develop an experimental setup that allows us to reconstruct the coupled invasion-deformation dynamics in 3D. We simultaneously characterize the fluid invasion pattern and document a transition from fluid-fluid displacement in pores to the formation of conduits by grain motion. We rationalize the findings in terms of a simple poromechanics model that indeed captures this transition as a result of the balance between viscous and frictional forces. These results contribute to elucidating the role of three dimensionality in the timing, mode, and morphology of fluid-fluid displacement and injection-induced deformation in porous media.
United States. Department of Energy (Grant DE-SC0018357)