Numerical modelling of nonlinear effects in laminar flow through a porous medium

Abstract

This paper deals with the introduction of a nonlinear term into Darcy's equation to describe inertial effects in a porous medium. The method chosen is the numerical resolution of flow equations at a pore scale. The medium is modelled by cylinders of either equal or unequal diameters arranged in a regular pattern with a square or triangular base. For a given flow through this medium the pressure drop is evaluated numerically.The Navier-Stokes equations are discretized by the mixed finite-element method. The numerical solution is based on operator-splitting methods whose purpose is to separate the difficulties due to the nonlinear operator in the equation of motion and the necessity of taking into account the continuity equation. The associated Stokes problems are solved by a mixed formulation proposed by Glowinski & Pironneau.For Reynolds numbers lower than 1, the relationship between the global pressure gradient and the filtration velocity is linear as predicted by Darcy's law. For higher values of the Reynolds number the pressure drop is influenced by inertial effects which can be interpreted by the addition of a quadratic term in Darcy's law.On the one hand this study confirms the presence of a nonlinear term in the motion equation as experimentally predicted by several authors, and on the other hand analyses the fluid behaviour in simple media. In addition to the detailed numerical solutions, an estimation of the hydrodynamical constants in the Forchheimer equation is given in terms of porosity and the geometrical characteristics of the models studied.