Field evidences and theoretical analysis of the gravity-driven wetting front instability of water runoffs on concrete structures

A series of field observations of the evolution of water runoffs over several vertical concrete walls directly exposed to rain falls is reported in this note. In all the cases, the main water flow originated from the top horizontal surface of the walls. The observations show that the gravity-driven wetting front may propagate in a very unstable...

Computational modelling of chloride ion transport in reinforced concrete

Exposure to a saline environment is a major threat with respect to the durability of reinforced concrete structures. The chloride ions, which are present in seawater and de-icing salts, are able to penetrate the concrete up to the depth of the reinforcement. They can eventually trigger a pitting corrosion process. The assessment of a corrosion...

Upscaling of flow in porous media from a tracer perspective

Most of our knowledge of flow in porous media is obtained at the pore and the macro scale. For reservoir scale modelling it is not practical to model the flow at these fine scales. Considering the usual objectives (e.g. large scale flow pattern and production forecast) it is undesirable to have to gather the tremendous amount of fine scale data...

Analysis of physical mechanisms underlying density-dependent transport in porous media

In this thesis, the interaction between (large) density gradients and flow and transport in porous media is studied. Large gradients in the density of groundwater exist for example near deep salt rock formations, which are considered as possible long-term storage sites for radioactive waste. Furthermore, density effects play a role in many other...

What is the Correct Definition of Average Pressure?

Use of a correct definition of average pressure is important in numerical modeling of oil reservoirs and aquifers, where the simulated domain can be very large. Also, the average pressure needs to be defined in the application of pore-network modeling of (two-phase) flow in porous media, as well as in the (theoretical) upscaling of flow...

An efficient computational model for CO2 flow in porous media

This paper presents an efficient computational model for the simulation of fully coupled two-phase flow in a deformed partially saturated formation. Focus is placed on modeling the flow of a CO2 plume in a porous medium. The numerical procedure is based on coupling between the Level-set method (LS) and the extended finite element method (XFEM)....

Carbon monoxide as a tracer of gas transport in snow and other natural porous media

The movement of air in natural porous media is complex and challenging to measure. Yet gas transport has important implications, for instance, for the evolution of the seasonal snow cover and for water vapor transport in soil. A novel in situmulti-sensor measurement system providing high-resolution observation of gas transport in snow is...

Numerical Simulation of Natural Convection in Heterogeneous Porous media for CO2 Geological Storage

We report a modeling and numerical simulation study of density-driven natural convection during geological CO2 storage in heterogeneous formations. We consider an aquifer or depleted oilfield overlain by gaseous CO2, where the water density increases due to CO2 dissolution. The heterogeneity of the aquifer is represented by spatial variations of...

Immiscible foam for enhancing oil recovery

Growing worldwide oil demand increased the need of new and efficient oil recovery methods. Gas injection in oil reservoirs is deemed one of the most widely used methods to increase oil recovery. However, the full potential of gas injection is often not realized due to poor vertical and areal sweep efficiency of the gas. Foaming could be a...

Low Emission Conversion of Fossil Fuels with Simultaneous or Consecutive Storage of Carbon Dioxide

This thesis evaluates the possibility of using underground coal gasification with a low CO2 footprint. The thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, by using the concept of exergy, a framework was constructed through which the practicality (feasibility) of an energy conversion/extraction method can be systematically evaluated. This...

Modeling aging of cementitious pore structure

Coupled reactive-transport processes in cementitious materials play a crucial role in the aging process pf building materials. Up to now, the effect of aging on microstructure and evolution of it’s properties, in three dimensions, was studied only by dissolution of certain phases at random locations. In this paper we present a new 3D reactive...

Shock-induced borehole waves in fractured formations

Natural or hydraulic fractures are of major importance for the productivity of hydrocarbon reservoirs. Besides fracture detection, also the aperture and extension of the fractures are essential for a correct reservoir productivity estimate. There are many ways to detect and measure fractures, such as borehole televiewers and electrical borehole...

Combustion for Enhanced Recovery of Light Oil at Medium Pressures

Using conventional production methods, recovery percentages from oil reservoirs range from 5% for difficult oil to 50% for light oil in highly permeable homogeneous reservoirs. To increase the oil recovery factor, enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are used. We distinguish EOR that uses chemical methods, (partially) miscible methods and thermal...

Monotone multiscale finite volume method

The MultiScale Finite Volume (MSFV) method is known to produce non-monotone solutions. The causes of the non-monotone solutions are identified and connected to the local flux across the boundaries of primal coarse cells induced by the basis functions. We propose a monotone MSFV (m-MSFV) method based on a local stencil-fix that guarantees...