Identifier

etd-0418102-131049

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Chemical Engineering

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation presents research on the pore-level modeling of transport in porous media. The focus of this work is on high-resolution modeling, a rigorous approach that represents detailed geometry and first-principle physics at the streamline scale. Three major topics are presented in this dissertation: an efficient approach for solving Stokes flow in essentially arbitrary disordered porous media, high-resolution versus network simulations of dispersion phenomena, and a stochastic model for solving interfacial mass transfer from source spheres in porous media. First an approach was developed for solving the Stokes flow problem in a comparatively large, very heterogeneous two-dimensional porous media with high efficiency using a combined domain decomposition and boundary element method. The second topic discussed in this dissertation is the high-resolution and network simulation of dispersion in the porous media for the purpose of evaluating network discretization effects for the hydrodynamic model and the nodal mixing assumption for the solute transport model. It was found that molecular diffusion is not resolved properly with the nodal mixing assumption in the high Peclet number range. The third topic was the development of a stochastic model for simulating interfacial mass transfer from the surface of a single source sphere in a heterogeneous porous medium, which is valid in both low and high Peclet number range.

Date

2002

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Karsten E. Thompson

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.1772

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