SFB 1313 Publication "Visual Analysis of Two-Phase Flow Displacement Processes in Porous Media"

New SFB 1313 publication (University of Stuttgart), published in Computer Graphics Forum. The paper has been developed in the framework of SFB 1313's research projects D01, B05 and Z02.

"Visual Analysis of Two-Phase Flow Displacement Processes in Porous Media"

Authors

• Steffen Frey (University of Groningen, SFB 1313 external partner)
• Stefan Scheller (Former SFB 1313 doctoral researcher, research project D01)
• Nikolaos Karadimitriou (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project Z02)
• Dongwon Lee (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project B05)
• Guido Reina (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project D01)
• Holger Steeb (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research projects B05, C05 and Z02)
• Thomas Ertl (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project D01)

Abstract

We developed a new visualization approach to gain a better understanding of the displacement of one fluid phase by another in porous media. This is based on a recent experimental parameter study with varying capillary numbers and viscosity ratios. We analyse the temporal evolution of characteristic values in this two-phase flow scenario and discuss how to directly compare experiments across different temporal scales. To enable spatio-temporal analysis, we introduce a new abstract visual representation showing which paths through the porous medium were occupied and for how long. These transport networks allow to assess the impact of different acting forces and they are designed to yield expressive comparability and linking to the experimental parameter space both supported by additional visual cues. This joint work of porous media experts and visualization researchers yields new insights regarding two-phase flow on the microscale, and our visualization approach contributes towards the overarching goal of the domain scientists to characterize porous media flow based on capillary numbers and viscosity ratios.