A comparison between simulation and experiment for hysteretic phenomena during two-phase immiscible displacement

The paper compares a theory for immiscible displacement based on distinguishing percolating and nonpercolating fluid parts with experimental observations from multistep outflow experiments. The theory was published in 2006 in Physica A, volume 371, pages 209-225; the experiments were published in 1991 in Water Resources Research, volume 27, pages 2113. The present paper focuses on hysteretic phenomena resulting from repeated cycling between drainage and imbibition processes in multistep pressure experiments. Taking into account, the hydraulic differences between percolating and nonpercolating fluid parts provides a physical basis to predict quantitatively the hysteretic phenomena observed in the experiment. While standard hysteretic extensions of the traditional theory are nonlocal in time the theory used in this paper is local in time. Instead of storing the pressure and saturation history, it requires only the current state of the system to reach the same quantitative agreement. Key Points Accounting for the percolation of fluid phases resolves hysteresis A comparison between theory and experiment shows good agreement Modeling multistep outflow experiments possible with single set of parameters