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Dissolution-driven convection in a heterogeneous porous medium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2018

Ashwanth K. R. Salibindla ,
Rabin Subedi ,
Victor C. Shen ,
Ashik U. M. Masuk  and
Rui Ni Open the ORCID record for Rui Ni [Opens in a new window]
Ashwanth K. R. Salibindla
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Rabin Subedi
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Victor C. Shen
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Ashik U. M. Masuk
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Rui Ni*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
*
†Email address for correspondence: rui.ni@jhu.edu
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Abstract

Motivated by subsurface carbon sequestration, an experimental investigation of dissolution-driven Rayleigh–Darcy convection using two miscible fluids in a Hele-Shaw cell is conducted. A thin horizontal layer of circular impermeable discs is inserted to create an environment with heterogeneous and anisotropic permeability. The Sherwood number that measures the convective mass transfer rate between two fluids at the interface is linked to different parameters of the disc layer, including the disc size, spacing, layer permeability and its relative height with respect to the fluid interface. It is surprising that the convective mass transfer rate in our configuration is dominated by the disc spacing, but almost independent of either the disc size or the mean permeability of the layer. To explain this dependence, the convective mass transfer rate is decomposed into the number, velocity and density contrast of fingers travelling through the disc layer. Both the number and density contrast of fingers show dependences on the disc layer permeability, even though the product of them, the mass transfer rate, does not. In addition, the density contrast also shows a non-monotonic dependence on the disc spacing. The transition point is at a spacing that is close to the finger width. Based on this observation, a simple model based on mixing and scale competition is proposed, and it shows an excellent agreement with the experimental results.

JFM classification

Convection: Convection Convection: Convection in porous media

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JFM Papers
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Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 857 , 25 December 2018 , pp. 61 - 79
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© 2018 Cambridge University Press 

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