Numerical investigations of the flow through rotating porous media

at the microscopic and macroscopic scale

E. Sawicki, C. Geindreau & J.-L. Auriault

Laboratoire Sols-Solides-Structures (3S), CNRS Universits de Grenoble,
Grenoble Cedex, France

ABSTRACT: Recently, the flow law through rotating porous media was obtained by upscaling the flow equa-
tions at the pore scale. The strong influence of the Coriolis force on the flow through a rotating periodic arrays
of cylinders at both the microscopic scale and the macroscopic scale is numerically investigated.

1 INTRODUCTION 2.1 Upscaling process

Physical phenomena in heterogeneous systems such
This paper is aimed towards investigating the flow
as porous media are homogenisable, i.e. may be mod-
law of an incompressible viscous Newtonian fluid
elled by means of an equivalent continuous macro-
through a rigid rotating porous medium. Recently, the
scopic description, if the condition of separation of
flow law was obtained by upscaling the flow equa-
scales is satisfied. This fundamental condition may
tions at the pore scale (Auriault et al. 2000; Auriault
be expressed as = l/L
1 in which l and L are the
et al. 2002). The derived flow law is similar to Darcys
characteristic lengths of the heterogeneities and of the
law, but the tensor of permeability depends upon the
macroscopic sample or excitation, respectively.
angular velocity of the porous matrix, i.e. the Ekman
number, it verifies Hall-Onsagers relationship and
it is a non-symmetric tensor. We thus deduce that, 2.2 Dimensionless description at the pore scale
under rotation, an isotropic porous medium leads to
a non-isotropic effective permeability. These results Consider the flow through a rigid porous medium of
are briefly recalled in section 2. Then, in order to period , bounded by  that is placed in a centrifuge
highlight the influence of the Coriolis force on the of radius r. Within the periodic cell, the fluid occupies
flow through rotating porous media at both the micro- the domain p , and the fluid-solid interface is denoted
scopic scale, i.e. the pore-scale, and the macroscopic by  (Figure 1). Relatively to the moving porous matrix
scale, i.e. the sample scale, numerical simulations have frame R1, the dimensionless description (subscript )
been performed. In section 3, we first study the influ- for the quasi-static flow of an incompressible viscous
ence of the Coriolis force at the microscopic scale on Newtonian liquid is written
the flow through rotating periodic arrays of cylinders
(Geindreau et al. 2004) and also on the effective per-
meability tensor. In section 4, numerical simulations of
the flow through a permeameter placed in a centrifuge
basket are presented.

2 FLOW LAW IN ROTATING POROUS MEDIA R0 (galilean

frame)
A
The objective of the present section is to give a brief
review of the derivation of the flow law in a rotating r P
porous medium by using the homogenization method
xM
of multiple scale expansions (Bensoussan et al. 1978;
Sanchez-Palencia 1980; Auriault 1991). For details O R1 (moving frame) / R0
related to the analysis below, the reader is referred to
(Auriault et al. 2000; Auriault et al. 2002). Figure 1. Periodic cell  in a non-galilean frame R1 .

537
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
where w is the dimensionless fluid velocity relatively
to the matrix frame, p denotes the dimensionless
pressure and represents the dimensionless fluid vis-
The unknowns w(0) and p 1 = p(1) are also 
cosity. In the above equations, = e where
periodic. The macroscopic pressure drop G and the
is constant denotes the dimensionless angular veloc-
angular velocity are supposed to be given. The
ity of the porous matrix, O is a fixed point of the
tensor K rot depends through the Ekman number on
porous matrix within the period and M represents a
the angular velocity , the kinetic viscosity /
current point in p . We use the local pore lengthscale
and the characteristic length l. Moreover, it can be
l as the characteristic length scale for normalizing
shown (Auriault et al. 2000; Auriault et al. 2002) that
the variations of the differential operators: in other
the effective permeability K rot is a positive but non-
words, we apply the so-called microscopic point of
symmetric tensor, and that it verifies Hall-Onsagers
view (Auriault 1991). The dimensionless pore-scale
relationship Kijrot () = Kjirot ().
description shows four dimensionless numbers: Q,
which represents the ratio of the pressure term to the When the Ekman number is large
Ek 1
1,
viscous forces. By following a physical reasoning we the flow law is written (Auriault et al. 2000; Auriault
have Q = O (1 (Auriault 1991); the ratio R of the et al. 2002),
macroscopic convective inertia (O) to the viscous
force 2 w; the ratio A of the local convective inertia
( OM) to the macroscopic convective iner-
tia (O) and the Ekman number, Ek, the ratio of the
viscous force 2 w to the Coriolis inertia 2 w. where (K + (2/) H ) stands for an approxima-
We have A = O(2 l/2 r)
l/L = and we assume tion of K rot at large Ekman number. Tensor K (m2 ) is
R = O(1). To account for Coriolis effects, we assume the classical Galilean permeability tensor and H (m4 )
that Ek = O(1). is a second order tensor defined as follows

2.3 Asymptotic analysis

The velocity w and the pressure p are looked for in
the form of asymptotic expansions of powers of ,
where = w , p the dimensionless macroscopic
space variable x = X/L is related to the dimension-
less microscopic space variable y = X/l by x = y.
Substituting these expansions in the set (1-2) gives,
by identification of the same powers of , successive
boundary value problems to be investigated.
2.4 Macroscopic descriptions
When Ekman number is O(1) (
Ek 1
1 ) it can parallel cylinders arranged in a periodic pattern like
be shown that the dimensional macroscopic flow law
of rotating porous media is in the form
where the symbol ijk denotes the permutation sym-
bol and kij = kijrot (EK 1 = 0) is the solution of the
boundary value problem (6)(7) when = 0.
3 NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF
TENSORS K, H AND K rot OF FIBROUS
MEDIA
3.1 Microstructures
Porous media under consideration are constituted by
a square and triangular array (Figure 2). The radius
of the cylinder is a and e is the size of the periodic
cell. The solid volume fraction of the porous medium

e e

2a

2a
3e

where G = (p + (O)) and the velocity field

(0)
e2
w(0) = k rot (Ek 1 )G is obtained by solving the fol-
lowing boundary value problem in dimensional form e1
on the periodic cell , (a) (b)

Figure 2. (a) square and (b) triangular array of aligned

cylinders. Characteristic lengths of the periodic cell .

538
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
c = a2 /e2 or c = aa /(e2 3) varies from 0 to /4 for
the square array and from 0 to 3/6 for the triangular
array.
3.2 Numerical method
Numerical results presented in the following have been
obtained by solving the boundary problem (6)(7) with
a mixed pressure-velocity formulation implemented
in the finite element software FEMLAB (FEMLAB
2002). P2-P1 finite elements are used.
3.3 Permeability K
When EK 1 = 0, i.e. = 0, the permeability tensor of
both microstructures is transverse isotropic,
In order to compare our results with numerical data
and analytical models of the literature, it is convenient
to introduce the dimensionless permeability tensor K
(c, arrangement) = K/a2 . The tensor K is normalized
by a microscopic characteristic length which is arbi-
trarily chosen as the radius a of cylinders. Due to this
normalization, K depends on the solid volume frac-
tion c and the arrangement of cylinders only. Figure 3
shows the classical evolution of dimensionless com-
ponent kii = Kii /a2 versus the solid volume fraction c
for the square array of cylinders. This figure shows
that our results are in a very good agreement with
numerical results and with the prediction of asymp-
totic expressions of (Berdichevsky and Cai 1993) and
(Drummond and Tahir 1984). Such results validate our
calculus. Similar results have been obtained for the
triangular array of cylinders (Sawicki 2004).
103
K11*=K22* Drummond & Tahir (1984)
K33* Drummond & Tahir (1984)
K11*=K22* Berichevsky & Cai (1993)
101 K33* Berichevsky & Cai (1993)
Dimensionless permeability
3.4 Tensor H
From the definition (9) of H and due to the symmetry
of both microstructures, this tensor is also transverse
isotropic,
The definition (9) of the components Hij suggests that
they can be linked with the components Kij . Figure 4
shows the evolution of the following ratios
versus the solid volume fraction c for both arrange-
ments of cylinders. We observe that for both arrays of
cylinders the ratio H33 /(K11 K22 ) is a constant function
f = 1 over the whole range of the solid volume fraction.
By contrast, the evolution of H11 /(K33 K22 ) depends on
the solid volume fraction and on the arrangement of
cylinders. This ratio increases with increasing the solid
volume fraction, and can be approximated by a simple
function f (c, arrangement) defined as f (c, square) =
exp(1.617c) and f (c, triangular) = (1 0.69c)2 for
the square and the triangular arrays of cylinders,
respectively. These functions are also plotted in Fig-
ure 4. Taking into account these results, the tensor
(K + (2/) H ) (see Eq. 8) is written:
7
H11*/K22*/K33* square
H33*/K11*/K22* square
6
Fit square
H11*/K22*/K33* triangular
5 H33*/K11*/K22* triangular
Fit triangular

K11*=K22* present work

K33* present work 4

10-1
3

10-3 2

1
10-5

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
10-7
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Solid volume fraction (c)
Solid volume fraction (c)
Figure 4. Square and triangular array of cylinders: evolution

Figure 3. Square array of cylinders: evolution of the dimen- of H11 /(K11 K33 ) = H22 /(K22 K33 ) and H33 /(K11 K22 ) versus
sionless permeabilities Kii versus the solid volume fraction c. the solid volume fraction c.

539
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK

Figure 5. Evolution of the dimensionless microscopic
(0)
velocity field w(0) (3 /||wmax (0)||versus3 ; p(0) = e1 ,
c = 0.3.
where the inverse of the Ekman number is defined as
and characterizes the deviation of the flow in direction
ek when the porous medium is submitted to a macro-
scopic gradient of pressure and to an angular velocity,
which act in direction ei and ej , respectively. Let
us remind that the function f (c, arrangement) = 1 if
(ijk) = (132), (231) for both arrangement. The above
results point out that (i) it is more pertinent to use
the permeability to evaluate the Ekman number, as it
was suggested by (Vadasz 1993), (ii) the deviation of
the flow due to Coriolis forces strongly depends on the
angular velocity and also on the value of the permeabil-
ity in the direction perpendicular to the macroscopic
pressure gradient.
3.5 Permeability Krot
Now, we consider EK 1 = O(1). For the sake of sim-
plicity we also assume that = 3 e3 . As a result of
the geometry and the angular velocity, the permeabil-
ity tensor K rot (3 ) of both arrays of cylinders takes the
form,
where k12rot
(3 ) = K21
rot
(3 ) and K33 does not depend
on 3 . In order to determine Kijrot (3 ), several simu-
lations have been carried out on both microstructures
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
Figure 6. Square arrangement of cylinders: dimension-
rot rot
less permeability K11 (3 )/K11 and K21 (3 )/K11 ver-
sus the angular velocity 3 , for three different values
of the solid volume fraction c and at two values of e:
() c = 0.1, e = 2 mm, () c = 0.3, e = 2 mm, () c = 0.5,
e = 2 mm (&) c = 0.1, e = 1.5 mm, () c = 0.3, e = 1.5 mm,
( ) c = 0.5, e = 1.5 mm.
for three different values of the solid volume fraction
c (0.1, 0.3 and 0.5), for two values of the cell size e
(2 mm and 1.5 mm) and for an angular velocity within
the range 0 < 3 < 125 rad/s.
Figure 5 shows the evolution of the normalized
(0)
microscopic velocity field w(0) (3 )/||wmax (0)|| (inten-
sity and deviation) as a function of 3 for the square
arrangement of cylinders when p(0) = e1 . Arrows
and color map represent the direction and the inten-
(0)
sity of w(0) (3 /||wmax (0)|| respectively. We observe
that the flow deviation due to Coriolis acceleration
increases with increasing the angular velocity, whereas
the flow intensity diminish : these effects are Coriolis
effects at the microscopic scale. At the macroscopic
scale, the deviation which is characterized by the
angle between p(0) and w(0)  also increases with
increasing the angular velocity.
The plots of the dimensionless permeabilities
rot rot
K11 (3 /K11 and K21 (3 /K11 for the square array of
cylinders with respect to 3 for three values of solid
fraction c and for two values of e are shown in Figure 6.
For a given angular velocity, we observe that Coriolis
effects on the permeability decrease with increasing c
and with decreasing the length e. Figure 7 shows the
evolution of the same numerical results with respect
1 1
to Ek 1 = Ek(132) = Ek(231) defined by (eq. 14).
This figure shows that dimensionless permeabilities
rot rot
K11 (3 )/K11 and K21 (3 )/K11 can be adjusted by
540
Figure 7. Square arrangement of cylinders: dimensionless
permeability K11rot rot
(3 )/K11 and K21 (3 )/K11 versus EK1
defined by (16). Marks represents numerical results presented
in figure 6. The continuous line represents equation (17).
a unique curve which depends on the above Ekman
number only,
These relations are plotted in Figure 7 as the continu-
ous line. In this particular case, i.e. when = 3 , e3
from equation (17), it can be shown that the flow law
is written,
where the term: 23 e3 w(0)  appears as a macro-
scopic Coriolis force which deviates and brakes the
flow. These results remains valid for the triangular
array of cylinders when = 3 e3 . Relation is not valid
for all types of geometry and whatever (Geindreau
et al. 2004; Sawicki 2004).
4 NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF FLOW
THROUGH A PERMEAMETER
4.1 Boundary value problem
The objective of this last section is to highlight the
influence of the Coriolis forces on the flow in a rotating
porous medium at the macroscopic scale.We consider
a permeameter which is placed in a centrifuge at con-
stant angular velocity = 3 e3 . Lateral surfaces of
the permeameter are considered as impervious. The
permeameter is composed of three domains: two fluid
domains at the inlet and the outlet of the permeame-
ter, respectively and a porous domain (Figure 8). The
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
Figure 8. The pressure fields (a), (b) and the velocity fields
(c), (d) for the fine scale and the homogenized model.
porous medium consists of a periodic square array of
rigid cylinders which are parallel to the angular veloc-
ity. The radius r of the centrifuge is supposed to be
large in comparison with the characteristic dimen-
sions of the porous medium L and H : r  L and
r  H . Consequently, we assume that the centrifugal
force (O) is constant over the permeameter. For the
sake of simplicity we also assume that (O) = 0. This
hypothesis has not consequence on numerical results
presented below. Therefore, we suppose that the pres-
sure is homogeneous and constant at the inlet and the
outlet of the permeameter : p0 and p1 ( p0 > p1 ) are
the imposed inlet and outlet pressures, respectively.
In order, to clearly check the influence of the Coriolis
force on the flow through the permeameter, we consid-
ered two models (Figure 8) : (i) a fine scale model:
we assume that the porous medium is constituted by
one hundred cylinders and H /L = 1. The fluid flow in
the whole permeameter is described by,
and w = 0, on all solid surfaces. (ii) an homogenized
model : the fluid flow through the fluid zones is
described by eq. (19), whereas the flow in the porous
domain is described by
where K rot (3 ) is defined by equations (15) and (17).
541
4.2 Numerical results
Figures 8 (a),(b) and Figures 8 (c),(d) show the
pressure fields and the velocity fields for the fine
scale and the homogenized models, respectively.
We observe that the homogenized and the fine scale
solutions are in very good agreement even if the sep-
aration of scale for the fine scale model is poor:
0.1. We also observe that due to the rotation
and to the macroscopic boundary conditions, the pres-
sure gradient p within the porous medium is deviated
from the sample axis whereas the macroscopic veloc-
ities w (fine scale model) and v (homogenized
model) are not deviated.
To compare the classical interpretation of centrifuge
tests to our results, let us introduce the scalar parameter
K cen [m2 ] defined by the Darcys law,
where Q(3 ) [m2 /s] is the flow rate in the permeameter
and 2 p = (pB pD )/BD ' is the gradient of pressure in
the porous medium between points B and D. In Fig-
ure 9, we observe that the ratio K cen (3 )/K11 deduced
from our numerical simulations remains constant and
equal to 1 when the angular velocity increases. That
shows that existing experimental data are not sufficient
to determine the tensor K rot .
In the porous medium, the macroscopic flow is
described by the following relation,
Figure 9. Evolution of K cen (3 )/K11 (21), K22 rot
(3 )/K11
rot
(23) and K21 (3 )/K11 (24) deduced from our numerical
simulations for the fine scale model and the homogenized
model versus the Ekman number.
Copyright 2005 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
where v = (v1 , v2 ) and p = (1 p, 2 p). At the bound-
aries of the porous medium, we have v1 = 0 and
v2 = Q(3 )/L, Thus, from (22) we get
These relations show that it is possible to determine
the components of tensor K rot knowing the flow rate Q
and two gradients of pressure defined as 1 p = (pA
' and 2 p = (pB pD )/BD.
pB )/AB ' Figure 9 shows the
rot rot
evolution of K22 (3 )/K11 and K21 (3 )/K11 deduced
from our numerical simulations by using the above
relations for the fine scale model and the homog-
enized model. In this figure, we have also plotted
relation (17) (continuous lines). These results show
that it seems possible to deduce components of the
effective tensor of permeability of a rotating isotropic
porous media from the flow rate Q in the permeameter
and three pressure measurements (pA , pB , pD ).
5 CONCLUSION
In order to highlight the influence of the Coriolis
force on the flow through rotating porous media at
both the microscopic scale, i.e. the pore-scale, and
the macroscopic scale, i.e. the sample scale, numer-
ical simulations have been performed. We first have
studied the influence of the Coriolis force at the micro-
scopic scale on the flow through rotating periodic
arrays of cylinders (Geindreau et al. 2004) and on
the effective permeability tensor. Deviations of the
flow which are due to Coriolis forces, that is, to the
angular velocity are clearly highlighted. Numerical
results obtained for different values of the radius of
cylinders and solid volume fraction, and also for var-
ious arrangements of cylinders were presented. All
these results suggest that (i) it is more pertinent to
use the permeability in the direction perpendicular to
the macroscopic gradient of pressure to estimate the
characteristic length in the Ekman number which mea-
sures the deviation of the flow, (ii) the flow law in
non-Galileen frame may be approximated by a simple
modified Darcys law including a macroscopic Cori-
olis force which brakes and deviates the flow. Next,
numerical simulations of the flow through a perme-
ameter placed in a centrifuge basket were performed
in order to highlight the influence of the Coriolis force
at the macroscopic scale. Obtained numerical results
show that the gradient of pressure field is deviated
from the sample axis whereas the macroscopic veloc-
ity is not deviated. These numerical results obtained
by using the homogenized macroscopic flow law were
542
compared with numerical results deduced from fine
scale simulations. We finally conclude by showing
that available experimental data from tests carried out
in centrifuges are not sufficient to determine the effec-
tive tensor of permeability of rotating porous media.
We show that it seems possible to deduce the com-
ponents of the effective tensor of permeability of a
rotating isotropic porous media from the flow rate in
the permeameter and three pressure measurements.
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