Research On Permeability Of Non-Newtonian Fluids Through Fractal Porous Media

The flow of non-Newtonian fluids through porous media has been the subject of intensive investigations for years because of the wide variety of applications. Some examples are the separation and reaction processes occurring in fixed and fluidized beds, secondary and tertiary oil recovery operations (e.g. polymer and foam flooding), migration of liquid pollutants (e.g. waste oil suspension, asphalt, creosote/water emulsion, etc.) in the subsurface and potential contamination of underground aquifers. Fortunately, it has been shown that porous media in nature are fractal objects, so fractal concepts may be used to analyze the transport properties of non-Newtonian fluids in porous media. This work is devoted to studying the flow characteristics of non-Newtonian fluids (Power-law, Ellis, Meter fluids) in saturated porous media. A fractal model is then developed for the effective permeability of Power-law, Ellis, Meter fluids flow in porous media.This work studies the flow characteristics of non-Newtonian fluids (Power-law, Ellis, Meter fluids) in saturated porous media. A fractal model is developed for the effective permeability for Power-law, Ellis, Meter fluid flow in porous media based on the assumptions that porous media consist of a bundle of tortuous capillaries, whose size distribution and tortuosity follow the fractal scaling laws. The average flow velocity and the effective permeability for Power-law, Ellis, Meter fluids in porous media are derived. The proposed fractal models do not contain any empirical constant and every parameter in the models has clear physical meaning. The model predictions are compared with the measured data, and good agreement between them is obtained. The maximum radius of porous media and the characteristic cluster radius may have different values in real porous media. This thesis presents a preliminary work, and further study such as for relative permeability for non-Newtonian fluids (Power-law, Ellis, Meter fluids) in unsaturated porous media is in progress.