Measurement of interfacial area per volume for drainage and imbibition
Abstract
We investigate experimentally the functional relationship between capillary pressure, Pc, wetting phase saturation, S-w, and interfacial area per volume between the wetting and nonwetting phases, awn, for drainage and imbibition processes in micromodels of two-dimensional pore structures. Within the experimental and analysis error (around 10-15%), the resulting P-c-S-w-a(wn) surfaces were the same. This suggests that data obtained from either the drainage process or the imbibition process are sufficient to generate the complete functional relationship among P-c-S-w-a(wn) and that the observed hysteresis in P-c-S-w-a(wn) can be modeled by including interfacial area as an additional state variable.
Published in:
Water Resources Research 43,12 (2007) W12504;
Link to original published article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2007WR006021
Keywords
Environmental Sciences;; Limnology;; Water Resources
Date of Version
1-1-2007
Recommended Citation
Chen, D. Q.; Pyrak-Nolte, L. J.; Griffin, J.; and Giordano, N. J., "Measurement of interfacial area per volume for drainage and imbibition" (2007). Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications. Paper 888.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/physics_articles/888