TY - JOUR
T1 - Time-dependent Pore Filling
AU - Sun, Zhonghao
AU - Jang, Junbong
AU - Santamarina, Carlos
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01
Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the KAUST endowment. J. Jang was supported in part by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Gas Hydrates Projects. G. Abelskamp edited the manuscript. Data sets presented in this study are available from the KAUST Repository: http://hdl.handle.net/10754/627427.
PY - 2018/12/26
Y1 - 2018/12/26
N2 - Capillarity traps fluids in porous media during immiscible fluid displacement. Most field situations involve relatively long time scales, such as hydrocarbon migration into reservoirs, resource recovery, non-aqueous phase liquids remediation, geological CO2 storage, and sediment-atmosphere interactions. Yet, laboratory studies and numerical simulations of capillary phenomena rarely consider the impact of time on these processes. We use time-lapse microphotography to record the evolution of saturation in air- or hydrocarbon-filled capillary tubes submerged in water to investigate long-term pore filling phenomena beyond imbibition. Microphotographic sequences capture a lively pore filling history where various concurrent physical phenomena coexist. Dissolution and diffusion play a central role. Observations indicate preferential transport of the wetting liquid along corners, vapor condensation, capillary flow induced by asymmetrical interfaces, and interface pinning that defines the diffusion length. Other processes include internal snap-offs, fluid redistribution, and changes in wettability as fluids dissolve into each other. Overall, the rate of pore filling is diffusion-controlled for a given interfacial configuration; diffusive transport takes place at a constant rate for pinned interfaces, and is proportional to the square toot of time for free interfaces where the diffusion length increases with time.
AB - Capillarity traps fluids in porous media during immiscible fluid displacement. Most field situations involve relatively long time scales, such as hydrocarbon migration into reservoirs, resource recovery, non-aqueous phase liquids remediation, geological CO2 storage, and sediment-atmosphere interactions. Yet, laboratory studies and numerical simulations of capillary phenomena rarely consider the impact of time on these processes. We use time-lapse microphotography to record the evolution of saturation in air- or hydrocarbon-filled capillary tubes submerged in water to investigate long-term pore filling phenomena beyond imbibition. Microphotographic sequences capture a lively pore filling history where various concurrent physical phenomena coexist. Dissolution and diffusion play a central role. Observations indicate preferential transport of the wetting liquid along corners, vapor condensation, capillary flow induced by asymmetrical interfaces, and interface pinning that defines the diffusion length. Other processes include internal snap-offs, fluid redistribution, and changes in wettability as fluids dissolve into each other. Overall, the rate of pore filling is diffusion-controlled for a given interfacial configuration; diffusive transport takes place at a constant rate for pinned interfaces, and is proportional to the square toot of time for free interfaces where the diffusion length increases with time.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630205
UR - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018WR023066
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85059097653&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1029/2018wr023066
DO - 10.1029/2018wr023066
M3 - Article
VL - 54
SP - 10,242-10,253
JO - Water Resources Research
JF - Water Resources Research
SN - 0043-1397
IS - 12
ER -