| Thu March 28th 2013 10:30 ZH286 | Seminar | Getting out of a tight spot: watching flow within a 3D porous medium Sujit Datta |
Details:Flows through porous media are ubiquitous; they arise in everyday situations, such as in forcing fluid out of a wet sponge, to important technological applications, including oil recovery, groundwater remediation, geological CO2 storage, and even nutrient transport through mammalian tissues. The opacity of porous media typically precludes direct observation of flow within them. We recently developed an experimental approach to directly visualize single- and multi-phase flow within a model porous medium, in three dimensions, both at pore-scale resolution and over continuum length scales. I will describe how we have used this approach to quantify and understand (i) spatial fluctuations in the flow, (ii) how the structure of the medium influences flow, and (iii) how another, immiscible fluid becomes trapped within, and may be mobilized from, the pore space. | ||
