DISCUSSION

Permeability is one of the property of rocks that is significant in the petroleum engineering. Darcys Law is a derived equation that relates permeability of laminar flow to other few factors such as differential pressure, viscosity of fluids, length of porous medium, flow rate, and area of porous medium. In the experiment that was conducted by our group, the permeability of the porous membranes were determined by using permeameter. There were 3 membranes with different thickness being tested in the experiment.

The permeameter used in the experiment was computerised. The working principle of the permeameter is basically the membranes will be flowed with distilled water of known viscosity by the varying differential pressures so that the permeability of the membranes can be determined by the computer. The flow rate of the fluid will also be recorded by the computer, and by that, we can calculate and determine if the laminar flow occur in the tests.

For a laminar flow to occur, the Reynolds number must be calculated and determined wether it is under the range of laminar flow, transitional flow or turbulent flow. The Reynolds number range for a laminar flow is it must be below 1. Transitional flow range is between 1 to 10 while exceeding the range, it is considered as a turbulent flow.

For membrane PP5, it has a thickness of 0.1cm and after being tested by the permeameter, it was found out that its permeability varied as the differential pressures were changed. The Reynolds number for membrane PP5 was calculated and it was found out that the flow of the fluid through membrane behaved like a laminar flow. This was because the Reynolds number for membrane PP5 for every different pressures did not exceed 1. Therefore, Darcys Law is valid for membrane PP5.

For membrane PP2, it has a thickness of 0.2cm and was tested with the permeameter to determine its permeability. The Reynolds number calculated for PP2 for every differential pressures were not in the same range. The laminar flow only occur for pressure of 5psi while the rest of the differential pressures were in the range of transitional flow. This may be occur due to errors happened while the permeameter was having a water supply problem. When the water supply did not function properly, the flow of the fluid through the porous membrane might be disrupted.

For membrane PP1, it has a thickness of 0.3cm and was also tested with the permeameter to determine its permeability. The Reynolds number of membrane PP1 was calculated for every differential pressures. It was found out that the flow of fluid through membrane PP1 was behaving like a laminar flow. The Reynolds number calculated was below 1 and therefore the Darcys Law is valid for membrane PP1.

The differential pressures used in this experiment are 5psi, 10psi, 15psi, 20psi and 30psi. The differential pressures are the driving force that flow the fluid through the porous membranes. According to Darcys equation, when the differential pressure increases, the permeability will decrease. In membrane PP5 results, from 5psi to 15psi, the permeability showed an increase instead of decrease. Only pressures greater than 15psi that the results started to show a proper decrease. This may be due to errors caused by the water supply problem.

Membrane PP2, the results were also not showing a proper decrease when the the pressures were increased. For pressure of 15psi, the permeability was higher compared to the lower pressures-5psi and 10psi. This may be caused by mistakes done by the group members when tightening the lid of the permeameter. Membrane PP1, the overall results showed a nice decrease of the permeability when the pressures increased.

CONCLUSION

The experiment that was carried out was to determine the flow through porous media. From the experiment, permeability and the flow rate of fluid through porous media was obtained. Moreover, the result obtained was used to determine whether the flow is laminar, transitional, or turbulent flow by depending on its Reynolds number. The porous media that was used is a type of membrane that is called PP1, PP2 and PP5. Each of the membrane has different thickness which was 0.3cm, 0.2cm and 0.1cm. The experiment was tested using 5 different pressures which were 5 psi, 10 psi, 15 psi, 20 psi, and 30 psi.

The result obtained from the experiment shows that PP1 and PP5 has a laminar flow whereas PP2 has transitional flow. PP1 and PP5 have the Reynolds number below 1 for each of its differential pressure. On the other hand, PP2 has a range of 1 to 10 for its Reynolds number due to an error in the permeameter. The flow rates which laminar flow exists in PP1 and PP5 whereas PP2 is transitional flow. This shows that Darcy Law is valid with laminar flow for PP1 and PP5.

The graph that was sketched shows that for every membrane which was PP1, PP2 and PP5 is valid under Darcy Flow. The gradient indicates the slope that is k/. The fluid flow follows the Darcy Law. However there were some data in the graph that deviates from Darcys Law shows that it is under high pressure. This occurs when the experiment was carried out using high pressure such as 30 psi. It is observed in the graph of PP2 which shows that it deviates from the Darcy Law indicating that it has turbulent flow under 30 psi.

As a conclusion, Darcy Equation can be used to calculate the absolute permeability of the porous media where it can be link to Reynolds equation to determine whether laminar flow condition exists. In this experiment that was carried out, PP1 and PP5 shows that laminar flow condition exists whereas PP2 has a turbulent flow according to the results obtained. Moreover, each of the membrane that was being tested follows the Darcy Law which shows that permeability of the fluid varies as different pressure used.