Simulation of Two Phase Fluid Flow With Various Kinds of Barriers Using Lattice Boltzmann Method

Study of flow through porous media has been an area of major interest due to its application in diverse areas like Enhanced Oil Recovery. In order to gain a better understanding of the physical processes taking place inside a porous structure, a large number of attempts have been made to computationally simulate multiphase fluid flow at pore-scale. Recently, application of Lattice Boltzmann Method has gained popularity for this very purpose, considering its relative superiority in dealing with complex boundaries and multiphase flow. However, in order that such a numerical analysis is successful, a proper understanding of the geometry of the pore structure at the microscale is required. This paper uses a Micro-CT scan image of a Berea Sandstone core, which displays a two dimensional representation of pore network inside the scanned sample. The processed image has been imported and simulation of an immiscible two-phase flow has been carried out by using a Lattice Boltzmann program. The resident fluid (oil) has been displaced by the invading fluid (water) due to application of a pressure gradient. The pore surfaces have been treated as solid boundaries and bounce back scheme has been implemented on them to account for the no-slip condition. The ability of the code to import an arbitrary porous geometry and perform numerical analysis of fluid flow has been demonstrated.

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Simulation of two-phase fluid mixture flow in rectangular two-inlet cavity using lattice Boltzmann method

International Journal of Modern Physics C ◽

10.1142/s0129183114500041 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 25 (04) ◽

pp. 1450004 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Ruofan Qiu ◽

Anlin Wang ◽

Qiwei Gong ◽

Tao Jiang

Keyword(s):

Lattice Boltzmann Method ◽

Lattice Boltzmann ◽

Potential Model ◽

Vof Method ◽

Two Phase ◽

Fluid Mixture ◽

Mixture Flow ◽

Boltzmann Method ◽

Phase Fluid ◽

Pseudo Potential

In this paper, two-phase fluid mixture flow in rectangular two-inlet cavity is studied using lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). To simulate two-phase fluids with large viscosity difference, the pseudo-potential model is improved. The improved model is verified for surface tension through Laplace's law and shown much better performance in simulating fluids with large viscosity difference than pseudo-potential model. The multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) scheme is used to enhance numerical stability. Then the two-phase fluid mixture flow with same and different viscosity in two-inlet cavity is simulated by present lattice Boltzmann (LB) model, pseudo-potential LB model and volume-of-fluid (VOF) method, respectively. The comparison of these numerical results shows that LB model is more suitable for such kind of flow than VOF method, since it can reflect repulsive forces and transitional region of two-phase fluids in dynamic process. Moreover, it also shows that present LB model has better dynamic stability than pseudo-potential model. Furthermore, simulations of the two-phase fluid mixture flow with different fluid viscosities, inlet velocities, inlet heights and outlet positions using present LB model are presented, exhibiting their effect to contact area of fluids.

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