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Effect of long‐range correlations on transport phenomena in disordered media
Author(s) -
Sahimi Muhammad
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.690410205
Subject(s) - porous medium , percolation (cognitive psychology) , dispersion (optics) , convection , diffusion , mechanics , péclet number , flow (mathematics) , transport phenomena , range (aeronautics) , displacement (psychology) , statistical physics , physics , thermodynamics , materials science , geology , porosity , geotechnical engineering , optics , psychology , neuroscience , composite material , psychotherapist , biology
Abstract Three different flow and transport phenomena considered here are hydrodynamic dispersion in heterogeneous porous media and aquifers, transport of passive particles in an oscillating flow field, and miscible displacement processes in heterogeneous reservoirs. At microscales all three phenomena are described by the classical convective‐diffusion equation (CDE). The presence of long‐range correlations at macroscales gives rise to a rich variety of phenomena that cannot be predicted by analyzing the CDE by classical methods. In particular, a new percolation model with long‐range correlations provides a rational explanation for the hitherto unexplained field‐scale experimental data for hydrodynamic dispersion in porous media and aquifers. Moreover, for transport in oscillating flow in convection cells percolation provides a novel relation between the dispersion coefficient and the Péclet number that cannot be predicted by other methods.