Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media

Flow and transport processes through porous media are ubiquitous both in natural and industrial environments. Ranging from diffusion in human tissue to oil recovery and CO2 storage, including the design of porous reactors, geothermal energy production, groundwater remediation, oil recovery and CO2 s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Pescimoro, Eugenio
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/74088/
_version_ 1848800842199597056
author Pescimoro, Eugenio
author_facet Pescimoro, Eugenio
author_sort Pescimoro, Eugenio
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Flow and transport processes through porous media are ubiquitous both in natural and industrial environments. Ranging from diffusion in human tissue to oil recovery and CO2 storage, including the design of porous reactors, geothermal energy production, groundwater remediation, oil recovery and CO2 storage, the characterisation of fluid flow and solute transport at different scales represents the paradigm to better understand the mechanisms at the base of several processes. Due to the broad spectrum of applications, a vast empirical and numerical research field developed around transport in heterogeneous porous media. While on the numerical side, the mathematical models available for simulating transport at the micro and meso scales have shown good agreement with the empirical tests, the debate around modelling transport at the macro-scale is still open. One example is the unknown relation between system parameters and their values measured at different scales which is usually addressed as scale effect. Other examples are anomalous or non-Fickian transport phenomena and the validity range of macro-scale transport models. Our study focuses on the impact of the heterogeneous distribution of the subsurface properties on the transport of solute at the macro-scale. Initially we propose an analysis of transport in heterogeneous porous media generated with a random geostatistical algorithm. Subsequently this subject is expanded and applied to a real domain which was surveyed and reconstructed with a high level of resolution. Three-dimensional meso-scale numerical simulations performed with our open-source C++ library, built on top of the finite-volume library OpenFOAM, represent the main source of data to test macro-scale mathematical models.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T20:57:59Z
format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
id nottingham-74088
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T20:57:59Z
publishDate 2023
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-740882023-07-27T09:34:26Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/74088/ Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media Pescimoro, Eugenio Flow and transport processes through porous media are ubiquitous both in natural and industrial environments. Ranging from diffusion in human tissue to oil recovery and CO2 storage, including the design of porous reactors, geothermal energy production, groundwater remediation, oil recovery and CO2 storage, the characterisation of fluid flow and solute transport at different scales represents the paradigm to better understand the mechanisms at the base of several processes. Due to the broad spectrum of applications, a vast empirical and numerical research field developed around transport in heterogeneous porous media. While on the numerical side, the mathematical models available for simulating transport at the micro and meso scales have shown good agreement with the empirical tests, the debate around modelling transport at the macro-scale is still open. One example is the unknown relation between system parameters and their values measured at different scales which is usually addressed as scale effect. Other examples are anomalous or non-Fickian transport phenomena and the validity range of macro-scale transport models. Our study focuses on the impact of the heterogeneous distribution of the subsurface properties on the transport of solute at the macro-scale. Initially we propose an analysis of transport in heterogeneous porous media generated with a random geostatistical algorithm. Subsequently this subject is expanded and applied to a real domain which was surveyed and reconstructed with a high level of resolution. Three-dimensional meso-scale numerical simulations performed with our open-source C++ library, built on top of the finite-volume library OpenFOAM, represent the main source of data to test macro-scale mathematical models. 2023-07-26 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/74088/1/Thesis_final.pdf Pescimoro, Eugenio (2023) Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. porous media hydrogeology mathematical modelling
spellingShingle porous media
hydrogeology
mathematical modelling
Pescimoro, Eugenio
Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
title Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
title_full Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
title_fullStr Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
title_full_unstemmed Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
title_short Flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
title_sort flow and transport modelling in highly heterogeneous geological porous media
topic porous media
hydrogeology
mathematical modelling
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/74088/