Wetting fronts in porous media: Modelling results and emerging issues

Abstracts:

Wetting in porous media: Modelling results and emerging issues
Yulii Shikhmurzaev (University of Birmingham)

The dynamics of a liquid-fluid interface (‘wetting front’) propagating through a porous medium poses a number of fundamental questions relevant to many applications. For example, as discovered experimentally, besides the ‘standard’ Lucas-Washburn regime, there exists the ‘anomalous’ regime of very slow propagation of the wetting front, and it is this regime that is responsible, in particular, for the trapping of ganglia behind the wetting front and other practically important phenomena. However, currently there is very little understanding of the physical mechanics behind this anomalous process. Another puzzling issue is the fact that the spreading of a pure liquid over a porous substrate has two distinct stages: (i) the first stage where the contact lines formed with the substrate’s surface by the liquid’s free surface above it and the wetting front beneath it move together, and (ii) the stage where they separate as the free surface stops spreading whilst the wetting front continues to propagate. This phenomenon is observed in experiments but its theoretical understanding is lacking. Finally, one can pose a question as to whether or not the classical Darcy law that underpins all research into the fluid flows in porous media is applicable in all those situation to which it is applied. All these issues will be the subject this talk.

Yulii D. Shikhmurzaev is professor of applied mathematics at the University of Birmingham School of Mathematics.

Subsequent talk:

Title to be announced
Mathis Fricke (MMA)

Date: January 22, 2018, 15:00-17:00
Venue: L2|06, Room 100