Abstract
Multiple numerical approaches have been developed to simulate porous media fluid flow and solute transport at the pore scale. These include 1) methods that explicitly model the three-dimensional geometry of pore spaces and 2) methods that conceptualize the pore space as a topologically consistent set of stylized pore bodies and pore throats. In previous work we validated a model of the first type, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes employing a standard finite volume method (FVM), against magnetic resonance velocimetry (MRV) measurements of pore-scale velocities. Here we expand that validation to include additional models of the first type based on the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) and smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), as well as a model of the second type, a pore-network model (PNM). The PNM approach used in the current study was recently improved and demonstrated to accurately simulate solute transport in a two-dimensional experiment. While the PNM approach is computationally much less demanding than direct numerical simulation methods, the effect of conceptualizing complex three-dimensional pore geometries on solute transport in the manner of PNMs has not been fully determined. We apply all four approaches (FVM-based CFD, LBM, SPH and PNM) to simulate pore-scale velocity distributions and (for capable codes) nonreactive solute transport, and intercompare the model results. Comparisons are drawn both in terms of macroscopic variables (e.g., permeability, solute breakthrough curves) and microscopic variables (e.g., local velocities and concentrations). Generally good agreement was achieved among the various approaches, but some differences were observed depending on the model context. The intercomparison work was challenging because of variable capabilities of the codes, and inspired some code enhancements to allow consistent comparison of flow and transport simulations across the full suite of methods. This study provides support for confidence in a variety of pore-scale modeling methods and motivates further development and application of pore-scale simulation methods.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 176-189 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Advances in Water Resources |
| Volume | 95 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 2016 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
Sandia National Laboratories is a multiprogram laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000 . This SPH work was supported by the DOE Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) Applied Mathematics program as part of the Collaboratory on Mathematics for Mesoscopic Modeling of Materials (CM4). This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) through the PNNL Subsurface Biogeochemical Research Scientific Focus Area project. Computations described here were performed using computational facilities of the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a national scientific user facility sponsored by DOE-BER and located at PNNL, computational facilities of PNNL’s Institutional Computing program, and computational facilities of the National Energy Research Supercomputing Center, which is supported by the DOE Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. PNNL is operated for the DOE by Battelle Memorial Institute under Contract No. DE-AC06-76RLO 1830 . The pore-network modeling was carried out under funding from the Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, DOE Project No. DE-SC0001114 . We would also like to thank Karsten Thompson and LSU for providing the network extraction algorithm. Institute for Computational Modelling in Civil Engineering (iRMB) at Technische Universität Braunschweig gratefully acknowledges financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for funding the Research Training Group MUSIS (FOR 1083).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security | |
| DOE Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research | |
| DOE-BER | |
| Energy Frontier Research Center | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | DE-SC0001114 |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Battelle | DE-AC06-76RLO 1830 |
| Battelle | |
| Office of Science | DE-AC02-05CH11231 |
| Office of Science | |
| Basic Energy Sciences | |
| Advanced Scientific Computing Research | |
| Biological and Environmental Research | |
| Pacific Northwest National Laboratory | |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | FOR 1083 |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | |
| Technische Universität Braunschweig |
Keywords
- Computational fluid dynamics
- Lattice Boltzmann method
- Pore-network model
- Pore-scale modeling
- Porous media flow
- Smoothed particle hydrodynamics