Dynamics of fluid-fluid displacements in a model rough fracture beyond the quasistatic limit: A spectral approach

Abstract

In fluid-fluid displacements in porous and fractured materials, viscous friction in microscale interfacial (Haines) jumps is intimately linked to macroscale energy dissipation and the associated pressure-saturation (retention) hysteresis. The mode of control (flow rate vs. pressure) and the driving rate (from quasistatic to finite) can substantially affect hysteresis. Despite the significance of hysteresis and dissipation in various technological and natural processes, a quantitative understanding of the link between the micro- and macro-scales, and of the impact of the inherent heterogeneity of porous media, remains elusive. An ``imperfect'' Hele-Shaw cell of variable aperture is a simple model system which allows to study all these in details. However, simulating fluid-fluid interface evolution in heterogeneous media, even in such a simple system, is computationally prohibitive, as multiple length and time scales need to be resolved simultaneously. We develop here a spectral computational approach for interface evolution and energy dissipation and validate it via comparison to computational fluid dynamics simulations and experiments. Computational efficiency is demonstrated by following interface evolution in a cell with a single ``defect'', as well as with random roughness; in both, disparate length scales lead to nontrivial dynamics over many orders of magnitude in time. We also show theoretically that while viscous forces during Haines jumps fully account for the energy dissipated between consecutive metastable equilibria, viscosity does not change the total dissipated amount, merely the relaxation time. Our approach provides a stepping stone towards upscaling of fluid-fluid flows in porous media.