Pressure Fluctuations and Correlations in Steady State two Phase Flow in Porous Media

Abstract

This thesis investigates the burst size distribution and pressurecorrelation profiles of steady state two phase flow in porous mediaat various capillary numbers and viscosity ratios. A network modelis used to simulate steady state flow in a two dimensional porousmedia by simultaneous injection of both the wetting and the non-wetting phase. The steady state burst size distribution is found to bea power law with critical exponent α = −2.0134 ± 0.13. The distri-bution is found to be independent of capillary number and viscosityratio. This is consistent with earlier results found for the burst sizedistribution during invasion and with other systems exhibiting selforganized criticality. The two point pressure correlation is estimateby curve fitting. The fitted curve is found to scale as a power lawwith critical exponent η = 1/2 in the long range limit.