DISPERSION IN POROUS MEDIA

THE THEORY

Qualitative description and the quantitative estimate of the behaviour

of miscible fluids displacing one another in a porous medium
 DESCRIPTION
A simple example:
Tranziton zone

Injection of solute
(constant rate)
The width of the transition zone increases with time

A typical effect of dispersion

leads to the various equations of dispersion

 Definition

The occurrence and evolution of a transition zone between two domains

of the fluid phase with different compositions

moving miscible fluids tendency towards a uniform chemical

composition of the mixture
 Mechanisms

A) mechanical action

Simultaneous action of

B) physicochemical action
A)Mechanical action: (Hydrodynamic dispersion)(Advection)

Non uniform velocity distribution of fluid flow through porous media

This is due to boundary effects of the solid matrix

Boundary effects:
zero velocity on the solid surface

1) creats velocity gradient in the fluid phase

 variations of pore dimensions
2)

create discrepancies between the

maximum velocities along the pore axes

3) fluctuation of streamlines with respect to

mean direction of flow
These three types of mechanical action take place
simultaneously and
yield the “mechanical dispersion”

Mean velocity direction

Geometrical aspect of dispersion

This is based on two basic effect:

1) differences between the velocity components along mean velocity direction

“longitudinal dispersion’’

2) differences between the velocity components in that plane orthogonal to

mean velocity direction

“lateral dispersion”
Experimentally, it is observed that longitudinal dispersion is larger than transverse
dispersion (Blackwell, 1962; Fried and Combarnous, 1971)

‘’Dispersion is thus anisotropic.’’

B) physicochemical action:

physicochemical dispersion = molecular diffusion

results from the chemical potential gradient(concentration)

Molecular diffusion takes place even in a fluid at rest

It is always present in dispersion.

It accounts to a great extent for lateral dispersion

Used for analogies between dispersion and heat transfer.

The action of molecular diffusion:

Dividing the fluid into streamtubes, for the sake of simplicity, we observe two
types:

the differences of concentration in the tube mean

1) direction tend to disappear.
‘’longitudinal effect’’

mass transfer between two adjacent streamtubes, in order

also to smooth out the differences in concentration
2)
‘’lateral effect’’
 Convection

Mechanisms of mass transfer in porous media Diffusion

Hydrodynamic dispersion
 Convection – Dispersion equation

Used for miscible transport of tracer in porous media

Dispersion term
Convection term
Dispersion coefficients:

Longitudinal coefficient

Transversal coefficient

The strength of mass transfer by convection to

mass transferr by diffusion
Flow regimes:
Effect of porous medium
Experiment:

Concentration profiles:
Breakthrough curves: