Abstract
A sequence of drainage and imbibition shocks within the traditional theory of two-phase immiscible displacement can give rise to shallow non-monotone saturation profiles as shown in Hilfer and Steinle (Eur Phys J Spec Top 223:2323, 2014). This phenomenon depends sensitively on model parameters and initial conditions. The dependence of saturation overshoot on initial conditions is investigated more systematically in this article. The results allow to determine regions in the parameter space for the observation of saturation overshoot and to explore limitations of the underlying idealized hysteresis model. Numerical solutions of the nonlinear partial differential equations of motion reveal a strong dependence of the overshoot phenomenon on the boundary and initial conditions. Overshoot solutions with experimentally detectable height are shown to exist numerically. Extensive parameter studies reveal different classes of initial conditions for which the width of the overshoot region can decrease, increase or remain constant.
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The authors acknowledge financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
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Steinle, R., Hilfer, R. Influence of Initial Conditions on Propagation, Growth and Decay of Saturation Overshoot. Transp Porous Med 111, 369–380 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-015-0598-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-015-0598-2