Uncertain Predictions of Flow and Transport in Random Porous Media: The Implications for Process Planning and Control

Abstract

Traditional predictions of flow and transport in porous media are based on mass balance equations in the form of partial differential equations (PDEs), where the flux at every point is defined by Darcy's law, q = -K(del)h, i.e., the flux is proportional to hydraulic head gradient, where K is the hydraulic conductivity of the medium (a tensor or a scalar; essentially, a material property); it is further assumed that Darcy's law applies to transient multiphase flow in three dimensions. The solutions of these PDEs constitute groundwater models, oil reservoir simulators, geothermal models, and models of flow and transport in soils/vadosezone. Due to the similarity between the linear Darcy's law and Ohm's law in electricity, Fourier law in heat conduction, and Hooke's law in elasticity, such models (or PDE solutions) are similar and commonly interchangeable between these fields.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA516317

Entities

People

  • Shlomo Orr

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boltzmann Equation
  • Boundaries
  • Computers
  • Control Systems
  • Differential Equations
  • Equations
  • Flow
  • High Resolution
  • Information Science
  • Leaching
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Oil Reservoirs
  • Partial Differential Equations
  • Simulations
  • Simulators
  • Statistics
  • Transport Ships

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
  • Fluid Dynamics.