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Pore‐scale determination of parameters for macroscale modeling of evaporation processes in porous media
Author(s) -
Ahrenholz B.,
Niessner J.,
Helmig R.,
Krafczyk M.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/2010wr009519
Subject(s) - porous medium , capillary pressure , lattice boltzmann methods , multiphase flow , materials science , saturation (graph theory) , mass transfer , capillary action , mechanics , evaporation , porosity , heat transfer , thermodynamics , composite material , physics , mathematics , combinatorics
Evaporation is an important process in many natural and technical systems, such as the unsaturated zone of the subsurface or microchannel evaporators. For the understanding and prediction of the involved processes, numerical simulations of multiphase flow and transport processes are an important tool. In order to achieve an accurate, physically based description of kinetic interphase mass and heat transfer occurring during evaporation, the numerical model has to account for the interfacial areas between phases. A recently developed model for two‐phase flow in porous media is able to account for the involved processes by using interfacial areas explicitly as parameters in the model. The crucial issue, however, is the determination of the relationships between specific interfacial areas, capillary pressure, and saturation in this paper, we present a multiphase lattice Boltzmann model, which allows us to determine these relationships. On the basis of the scanned geometry of a natural porous medium, the relationships between specific interfacial areas, capillary pressure, and saturation are determined. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that fluid‐solid specific interfacial area relationships have been obtained from pore‐scale data. Using these functions, we present the results of macroscale simulations of an evaporator device and of drying in a porous medium.