UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER

PLACE: Mathematics Conference Room 626 UCD Building, 1250 14th St., Denver

TIME: NOON (Refreshments served at 11:45 am)

DATE: Oct. 2, 2000

Title:
     On the Exploitation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in Modeling Multiphase Flow 

Speaker:
      William G. Gray
      Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences
      University of Notre Dame
      Notre Dame, IN  46556
 


Abstract:
In modeling multiphase flow in porous media, attention is
typically focused on obtaining governing equations that
effectively describe the flow and transport processes.  These
equations are conservation of mass for the chemical
species and the phases, and momentum equations, typically
expressed as variations of Darcy's law.  However, modeling of
multiphase flow at a scale on the order of hundreds to millions
of pore diameters introduces geometric variables into the
problem that are not present when the scale of modeling is below
the pore scale.  These variables are porosity, volume fractions,
interfacial area per volume, and common line length per volume.
It is important that these variables be incorporated into the
second law of thermodynamics such that the macroscale and
microscale formulations are consistent with each other and so
that the set of flow and transport equations can be properly
closed.  Here a formulation will be presented such that the
second law of thermodynamics provides important and useful
insights into data requirements for modeling of
multiphase flow in the subsurface.