Investigation of two-phase flow in porous media using lattice Boltzmann method

In this paper penetration of a liquid drop in a porous media is investigated by the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). Two-phase flow has been simulated by the Lee method which is based on the Chan-Hilliard binary fluid theory. The contact angle between solid, liquid and gas phases has been considered in the simulations. The porous medium is generated by locating square obstacles randomly in a domain. The Reynolds number, the Froude number, the Weber number, viscosity and density ratios are numbered as the non-dimensional flow parameters which influence the domain. The porosity, the Darcy number and the pore to solid length ratio are the non-dimensional characteristics of the porous structures affecting the penetration of liquid inside the porous media. To ensure the validity of the code, the release of a square drop in the computational field was tested and the equilibrium contact angle between the droplet and solid surface was modeled according to Lee. Penetration and the non-absorbed coefficient have been presented to show penetration of the drop. Investigation of numerical results showed that increasing the Reynolds number, the Froude number, porosity and density ratio will increase the penetration rate while increasing the Weber number causes scattering of the drop. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.