Comparison of two-phase Darcy's law with a thermodynamically consistent approach

Abstract

The extended Darcy’s law is a commonly used equation for the description of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. It dates back to the 1940s and is essentially an empirical relationship. According to the extended Darcy’s law, pressure gradient and gravity are the only driving forces for the flow of each fluid. Within the last two decades, more advanced and physically based descriptions for multiphase flow in porous media have been developed. In this work, the extended Darcy’s law is compared to a thermodynamically consistent approach which explicitly takes the important role of phase interfaces into account, both as entities and as parameters. In this theoretically derived approach, forces related to capillarity and interfaces appear as driving/resisting forces, in addition to the traditional terms. It turns out that the extended Darcy’s law and the thermodynamically based approach are compatible if either (i) relative permeabilities are a function of saturation only, but capillary pressure is a function of saturation and specific interfacial area or (ii) relative permeabilities are a function of saturation and saturation gradients. Theoretical considerations suggest that the former alternative is only valid in case of reversible displacement while in the general case (irreversible displacement), the latter alternative is relevant.