Scaling of Convective Mixing in Porous Media

Convective mixing in porous media is triggered by a Rayleigh-Bénard-type hydrodynamic instability as a result of an unstable density stratification of fluids. While convective mixing has been studied extensively, the fundamental behavior of the dissolution flux and its dependence on the system para...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hidalgo, Juan J. (Contributor), Fe, Jaime (Author), Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis (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, 2013-02-20T16:57:53Z.
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Online Access:Get fulltext
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100 1 0 |a Hidalgo, Juan J.  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Hidalgo, Juan J.  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Juanes, Ruben  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Fe, Jaime  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Juanes, Ruben  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Scaling of Convective Mixing in Porous Media 
260 |b American Physical Society,   |c 2013-02-20T16:57:53Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77160 
520 |a Convective mixing in porous media is triggered by a Rayleigh-Bénard-type hydrodynamic instability as a result of an unstable density stratification of fluids. While convective mixing has been studied extensively, the fundamental behavior of the dissolution flux and its dependence on the system parameters are not yet well understood. Here, we show that the dissolution flux and the rate of fluid mixing are determined by the mean scalar dissipation rate. We use this theoretical result to provide computational evidence that the classical model of convective mixing in porous media exhibits, in the regime of high Rayleigh number, a dissolution flux that is constant and independent of the Rayleigh number. Our findings support the universal character of convective mixing and point to the need for alternative explanations for nonlinear scalings of the dissolution flux with the Rayleigh number, recently observed experimentally. 
520 |a Masdar Institute of Science and Technology 
546 |a en_US 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t Physical Review Letters