Network modelling of yield-stress fluid flow in randomly disordered porous media

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Fonte, Cláudio P., Sutton, Elliott, Ohie, Kohei, Doman, Eleanor, Tasaka, Yuji, Juel, Anne
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866915997122822144
author Fonte, Cláudio P.
Sutton, Elliott
Ohie, Kohei
Doman, Eleanor
Tasaka, Yuji
Juel, Anne
author_facet Fonte, Cláudio P.
Sutton, Elliott
Ohie, Kohei
Doman, Eleanor
Tasaka, Yuji
Juel, Anne
contents Yield-stress fluid flow through porous media is governed by a strong coupling between rheology and pore-scale geometry, leading to nonlinear, non-Darcy transport and pronounced channelisation near yielding. We develop a pore-network model for Herschel-Bulkley flow in two-dimensional disordered porous media, including optional wall slip. The network is closed by a physics-based pressure-flow relation for a converging-diverging throat, so that yielding and post-yield transport emerge directly from the pore-scale fluid mechanics without fitted resistance parameters. Benchmarking against direct numerical simulations shows that the model captures both the bulk pressure drop and the evolution of the flow topology from spatially distributed transport to strongly channelised flow. The framework also captures the leading effect of wall slip, which lowers the pressure gradient required for transport and reactivates pathways that remain blocked in the no-slip case. Using the model across different porous geometries, we show that near-yield pressure losses are governed by constriction statistics rather than by an obstacle-scale length. In particular, rescaling with the domain-averaged minimum throat width collapses the plastic-dominated response across porosities, identifying the dissipation-relevant geometric scale for viscoplastic transport in this regime.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_09801
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Network modelling of yield-stress fluid flow in randomly disordered porous media
Fonte, Cláudio P.
Sutton, Elliott
Ohie, Kohei
Doman, Eleanor
Tasaka, Yuji
Juel, Anne
Fluid Dynamics
Soft Condensed Matter
Yield-stress fluid flow through porous media is governed by a strong coupling between rheology and pore-scale geometry, leading to nonlinear, non-Darcy transport and pronounced channelisation near yielding. We develop a pore-network model for Herschel-Bulkley flow in two-dimensional disordered porous media, including optional wall slip. The network is closed by a physics-based pressure-flow relation for a converging-diverging throat, so that yielding and post-yield transport emerge directly from the pore-scale fluid mechanics without fitted resistance parameters. Benchmarking against direct numerical simulations shows that the model captures both the bulk pressure drop and the evolution of the flow topology from spatially distributed transport to strongly channelised flow. The framework also captures the leading effect of wall slip, which lowers the pressure gradient required for transport and reactivates pathways that remain blocked in the no-slip case. Using the model across different porous geometries, we show that near-yield pressure losses are governed by constriction statistics rather than by an obstacle-scale length. In particular, rescaling with the domain-averaged minimum throat width collapses the plastic-dominated response across porosities, identifying the dissipation-relevant geometric scale for viscoplastic transport in this regime.
title Network modelling of yield-stress fluid flow in randomly disordered porous media
topic Fluid Dynamics
Soft Condensed Matter
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09801