Constitutive Relations for Reactive Transport Modeling: Effects of Chemical Reactions on Multi-Phase Flow Properties

The relationship between flow properties and chemical reactions is key to modeling subsurface reactive transport. This study develops closed-form equations to describe the effects of mineral precipitation and dissolution on multiphase flow properties (capillary pressure and relative permeabilities) of porous media. The model accounts for the fact that precipitation/dissolution only takes place in the water-filled part of pore space. The capillary tube concept was used to connect pore-scale changes to macroscopic hydraulic properties. Precipitation/dissolution induces changes in the pore radii of water-filled pores and consequently in the pore-size distribution. The updated pore-size distribution is converted back to a new capillary pressure-water
saturation relation from which the new relative permeabilities are calculated. Pore network modeling is conducted on a Berea sandstone to validate the new continuum-scale relations. The pore network modeling results are satisfactorily predicted by the new closed-form equations.