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Lecture 3/ Reservoir Engineering: The Fundamentals of Fluid Flow Through Porous Medium (Darcy's Law)

Darcy's law describes fluid flow through porous media, such as rocks and sediments. It states that the flow rate is proportional to the permeability of the medium and the pressure gradient, and inversely proportional to the fluid viscosity. Henry Darcy established this relationship in 1856 based on experiments filtering water through sand. For single-phase, isotropic flow through porous media, Darcy's law relates the flow rate to the permeability of the medium, the viscosity of the fluid, and the pressure gradient driving the flow. For multi-phase or anisotropic porous media, the effective permeability must be used.

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Lecture 3/ Reservoir Engineering: The Fundamentals of Fluid Flow Through Porous Medium (Darcy's Law)

Darcy's law describes fluid flow through porous media, such as rocks and sediments. It states that the flow rate is proportional to the permeability of the medium and the pressure gradient, and inversely proportional to the fluid viscosity. Henry Darcy established this relationship in 1856 based on experiments filtering water through sand. For single-phase, isotropic flow through porous media, Darcy's law relates the flow rate to the permeability of the medium, the viscosity of the fluid, and the pressure gradient driving the flow. For multi-phase or anisotropic porous media, the effective permeability must be used.

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Lecture

3/ Reservoir Engineering
The fundamentals of fluid
flow through porous medium
(Darcy’s Law)
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium

In fluid mechanics, fluid flow through porous media is the manner in


which fluids behave when flowing through a porous medium, for
example sponge or wood, or when filtering water using sand or
another porous material. As commonly observed, some fluid flows
through the media while some mass of the fluid is stored in the pores
present in the media.

Several equations has been established in order to describe flow


through porous media, the basic equation (Law) governing the flow
of fluids through porous media is Darcy’s law which was formulated
by the Henry Darcy in 1856 on the basis of his experiments on
vertical water filtration through sand beds.
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium

Darcy’s Law:- is a simple proportional relationship between the


instantaneous discharge rate through a porous medium, the viscosity
of the fluid and the pressure drop over a given distance.
Darcy found that his data could be described by:-
From this experiment the general expression of Darcy's equation was
established :-

where:- The minus sign is taken since the fluid flows in the direction from
higher potential to lower potential.
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
𝑉" :- is Darcy’s velocity (Superficial velocity), [cm/sec]
𝑞:- flow rate across porous media, [cm3/s]
𝐴:- cross-section area, [cm2]
𝑘:- matrix permeability, Darcy
𝜇:- fluid viscosity, [cp]
(∅
:- flow potential gradient, [atm/cm]
("
*
is the Hydraulic conductivity
+
Superficial velocity:- is the velocity of the fluid that flow with it over
the total cross section area of the porous media. It is not an actual
fluid flow velocity, where in reality fluid only flow through pores and
not through pores and matrix. Therefore true (actual) fluid velocity
which is also the average velocity is:
234567898:; <5;=98>? A"
𝑉 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 = 76:9>8=@ =7 4=65 :65: = , v actual> v superficial
B
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
• The Darcy unit is defined such that a rock having a permeability of 1
Darcy would transmit 1 c.c. of water with viscosity 1 cP per second,
through a region of 1 sq. cm. cross-sectional area, if the pressure
drop along the direction of flow were 1 atm per cm.
• The numerical value of k for a given rock depends on the size of the
pores in the rock, d as well as on the degree of interconnectivity of
the void space.
• The permeabilities of different types of rocks and soils vary over
many orders of magnitude. However, the permeabilities of
petroleum reservoir rocks tend to be in the range of 0.001-1.0
Darcies. So it is convenient to refer the permeability of reservoir
rocks in units of “milliDarcies” (mD), which equal 0.001 Darcies.
• In some reservoirs, the permeability is due mainly to an
interconnected network of fractures. The permeabilities of
fractured rocks tend to be in the range 1 mD to 10 Darcies. In a
fractured reservoir, the reservoir scale permeability is not closely
related to the core scale permeability that anyone can measure it.
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
• When several fluids are flowing through a porous medium, the
flowrate of each fluid will be governed by Darcy’s law. Basically,
such flowrate is dictated by the fluid’s viscosity and flow potential
gradient, the portion of the total cross-sectional area of the
medium that is available to the fluid’s flow, and the permeability
of the medium. In equation form, Darcy’s law is written:

where subscript “i” refers to fluid i. Since Ai is difficult and


impractical to determine, the total cross-sectional area of the
medium is preferred instead. This necessitates replacing k with ki,
which is termed the effective permeability to fluid i. the above
equation is, therefore , rewritten:
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
• For three dimensional flow Darcy's law could be written as:-
𝐴 𝛿∅
𝑞8 = −𝑘
𝜇 𝛿𝑠8
Where i index refers to the direction of flow.

• For Anisotropic media (Heterogeneous media) kh ≠ kv then Darcy’s


law is:-
𝐴 𝛿∅
𝑞8 = −𝑘8F
𝜇 𝛿𝑠F

In most rocks the permeability kh in the horizontal plane is different


than the vertical permeability, kv ; in most of the cases, kh > kv. The
permeabilities in any two orthogonal directions within the horizontal
plane have the difference. So, in this course we shall generally take:
kh = kv.
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
• It should be noted that The Darcy’s law in itself does not give
sufficient information to solve time-dependent i.e., transient
problems that involving subsurface flow. So to find the complete
governing equation that applies to these problems, the
mathematical expression for the principle of conservation of mass
must be used. The conservation of mass equation states the balance
between rate of mass change in an arbitrary volume and inflow of
mass through the boundary surface area as could be seen below.

This will discussed fully through this course later .


The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
The fundamentals of fluid flow through porous medium
Try to solve the problems below:-

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