Parallel Simulation of complex Flows in Porous Media

Abstract

The central working hypothesis of this project is that small-scale physics of moving water-air interfaces within heterogeneous soil structures and interplay among competing driving forces give rise to a wide range of macroscopic patterns of water and gas dynamics not captured by standard continuum models. Its primary objective is to characterize and quantify characteristic patterns of water and gas distributions as a function of structural properties, using thermal multi-component and multi-phase transport simulation at the pore scale. Based on these results, constitutive relations of meso-scale and field-scale models will be substantially improved.