Three-Dimensional Simulation of Singleand Multi-Phase Flows in Roughness Microchannels

Abstract

To predict the behavior of reservoir fluids in porous media and their investigation at the macroscopic level, it is necessary to study in detail the hydrodynamic flows in porous media at the microscale level from the point of view of the individual pore spaces taking into account their structural features. This paper deals with the analysis of a periodic flow of a viscous incompressible fluid and dispersed systems in a flat channel of rectangular cross section with irregular side walls under a constant pressure drop. Using an efficient numerical approach based on the 3D Boundary Element Method accelerated by the Fast Multipole Method on heterogeneous computing architectures, the influence of irregularities of various size and shape present on microchannel walls on the hydrodynamic flows of the viscous fluid flow and the emulsion droplet dynamics in a capillary micromodel of the porous medium is studied. The results of the present paper can also be useful in the design of microfluidic devices.