A Combined Experimental/Numerical Approach to Study the Thermal Dispersion in Porous Media Flows

Abstract

The non-isothermal transport during flow in porous media is studied for single- and dualscale porous media. A new combined experimental/numerical approach to estimating the thermal dispersion tensor is introduced and applied for both isotropic (single-scale) and anisotropic (dualscale) porous media. The equivalence between the heat and mass transfer is exploited and a 1-D flow experimental setup is employed to study the spreading of a dye. Later, the mathematical model for such a spreading of concentration (equivalent to the temperature) around a point input in a constant velocity field is solved using the finite element based code COMSOL. Thus obtained numerical spreading pattern is fitted onto the experimentally observed one using the dispersion matrix (tensor) as a fitting parameter. A few cases of single- and dual-scale porous media are studied and the dispersion tensors are reported for each individual case. In one case, the results are validated with the available experimental data in the literature which shows a good match.

Dates

  • Submission Date2011-06-26
  • Revision Date2012-01-14
  • Acceptance Date2012-01-14

DOI Reference

10.2298/TSCI110626009L

References

  1. Rudd, C.D., Long, A.C., Kendall, K.N., Mangin, C.G.E., Liquid Molding Technologies, Woodhead Publishing Ltd., UK, 1997
  2. Pillai, K.M., Munagavalasa, M.S., Governing Equations for Unsaturated Flow through Woven Fiber Mats. Part 2. Non-Isothermal Reactive Flows, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing, 35 (2004), 4, pp.403-415
  3. Phelan, F.R., Modeling of Microscale Flow in Fibrous Porous Media, Springer-Verlag New York Inc., USA, 1991
  4. Nield, D.A., Bejan, A., Convection in Porous Media, Springer, USA, 2006
  5. Robert A. Greenkorn, Flow Phenomena in Porous Media, New York and Besel, USA, 1983
  6. Rubin, H., Heat dispersion effect on thermal convection in a porous medium layer, Journal of Hydrology,21 (1974), pp. 173-184
  7. Nikolaevskii, V.N., Convective diffusion in porous media, Journal of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, 23 (1959), 6, pp. 1492-1503
  8. Bear, J., On the Tensor Form of Dispersion in Porous Media, Journal of Geophysical Research, 66 (1961), pp. 1185-1197
  9. Scheidegger, A.E., General Theory of Dispersion in Porous Media, Journal of Geophysical Research, 66 (1961), 10, pp. 3273-3278
  10. Poreh, M., The Dispersivity Tensor in Isotropic and Axisymmetric Mediums, Journal of Geophysical Research, 70 (1965), pp. 3909-3913
  11. Whitaker, S., Diffusion and Dispersion in Porous Media, AIChE Journal, 13 (1967), 3, pp. 420-427
  12. Patel, R.D. and R.A. Greenkorn, On Dispersion in Laminar Flow through Porous Media, AIChE Journal, 16 (1970), 2, pp. 332-334
  13. Mohseni Languri, E., Isothermal and Non-isothermal Flows in Porous Media, Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA, 2011
  14. Bouchaus J.P., Anomalous Diffusion in Disordered Media: Statistical Mechanisms, Models and Physical Applications, Physics Reports, 195 (1990), pp. 127-293
Volume 18, Issue 12, Pages463 -474