Numerical validation of an adaptive model for the determination of nonlinear-flow regions in highly heterogeneous porous media

Abstract

An adaptive model for the description of flows in highly heterogeneous porous media is developed in Fumagalli and Patacchini (2022, 2023). There, depending on the magnitude of the fluid’s velocity, the constitutive law linking velocity and pressure gradient is selected between two possible options, one better adapted to slow motion and the other to fast motion. We propose here to validate further this adaptive approach by means of more extensive numerical experiments, including a three-dimensional case, as well as to use such approach to determine a partition of the domain into slow- and fast-flow regions.