Convective mixing in homogeneous porous media flow

Abstract

Inspired by the flow processes in the technology of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage in saline formations, we modeled a homogeneous porous media flow in a Hele-Shaw cell to investigate density-driven convection due to dissolution. We used an analogy of the fluid system to mimic the diffusion and subsequent convection when CO2 dissolves in brine, which generates a heavier solution. By varying the permeability, we examined the onset of convection, the falling dynamics, the wavelengths of fingers, and the rate of dissolution, for the Rayleigh number Ra (a dimensionless forcing term which is the ratio of buoyancy to diffusivity) in the range of 2.0×104≤Ra≤8.26×105. Our results reveal that the effect of permeability influences significantly the initial convective speed, as well as the later coarsening dynamics of the heavier fingering plumes. However, the total dissolved mass, characterized by a nondimensional Nusselt number Nu, has an insignificant dependence on Ra. This implies that the total dissolution rate of CO2 is nearly constant in high Ra geological porous structures.Received 21 July 2016DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.014102©2017 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasConvectionFluid Dynamics