Flow and Transformations in Porous Media

Flow and Transformations in Porous Media
Author: Renaud Toussaint
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre:
ISBN: 2889450775

Fluid flow in transforming porous rocks, fracture networks, and granular media is a very active interdisciplinary research subject in Physics, Earth Sciences, and Engineering. Examples of natural and engineered processes include hydrocarbon recovery, carbon dioxide geo-sequestration, soil drying and wetting, pollution remediation, soil liquefaction, landslides, dynamics of wet or dry granular media, dynamics of faulting or friction, volcanic eruptions, gas venting in sediments, karst development and speleogenesis, ore deposit development, and radioactive waste disposal. Hydrodynamic flow instabilities and pore scale disorder typically result in complex flow patterning. In transforming media, additional mechanisms come into play: compaction, de-compaction, erosion, segregation, and fracturing lead to changes in permeability over time. Dissolution, precipitation, and chemical reactions between solutes and solids may gradually alter the composition and structure of the solid matrix, either creating or destroying permeable paths for fluid flow. A complex, dynamic feedback thus arises where, on the one hand, the fluid flow affects the characteristics of the porous medium, and on the other hand the changing medium influences the fluid flow. This Research Topic Ebook presents current research illustrating the depth and breadth of ongoing work in the field of flow and transformation in porous media through 15 papers by 72 authors from around the world. The body of work highlights the challenges posed by the vast range of length- and time-scales over which subsurface flow processes occur. Importantly, phenomena from each scale contribute to the larger-scale behavior. The flow of oil and gas in reservoirs, and the flow of groundwater on catchment scale is sensitively linked to pore scale processes and material heterogeneity down to the micrometer scale. The geological features of the same reservoirs and catchments evolved over millions of years, sometimes as a consequence of cracking and fracture growth occurring on the time scale of microseconds. The research presented by the authors of this Research Topic represents a step toward bridging the separation of scales as well as the separation of scientific disciplines so that a more unified picture of flow and transformation in porous media can start to emerge.

Fundamentals of Gas Shale Reservoirs

Fundamentals of Gas Shale Reservoirs
Author: Reza Rezaee
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2015-07-27
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1118645790

Provides comprehensive information about the key exploration, development and optimization concepts required for gas shale reservoirs Includes statistics about gas shale resources and countries that have shale gas potential Addresses the challenges that oil and gas industries may confront for gas shale reservoir exploration and development Introduces petrophysical analysis, rock physics, geomechanics and passive seismic methods for gas shale plays Details shale gas environmental issues and challenges, economic consideration for gas shale reservoirs Includes case studies of major producing gas shale formations

Diffusion in Gases and Porous Media

Diffusion in Gases and Porous Media
Author: Roberto Cunningham
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2013-06-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 147574983X

The world we live in exhibits, on different scales, many phenomena related to the diffusion of gases. Among them are the movement of gases in earth strata, the aeration of soils, the drying of certain materials, some catalytic reactions, purification by adsorption, isotope separation, column chro matography, cooling of nuclear reactors, and the permeability of various packing materials. The evolution of the understanding of this subject has not always been straightforward and progressive-there has been much confusion and many doubts and misunderstandings, some of which remain to this day. The main reason for the difficulties in the development of this subject is, we now know, the lack of an understanding of the effects of walls on diffusing systems. Textbooks usually treat diffusion on two levels: at the physicochemi cal or molecular level, making use of the kinetic theory of gases (which while a very rigorous and well-founded theory nevertheless is valid only for systems without walls), or at the level of a transport phenomenon, a level geared toward applications. The influence of walls is usually disregarded or is treated very briefly (for example, by taking account of the Knudsen regime or by introducing a transition regime of limited validity) in a way unconnected with previous studies. As a consequence, the extensive, gener alized, and well-founded knowledge of systems without walls has often been applied without sound basis to real situations, i.e., to systems with walls.