Capillary flows in heterogeneous and random porous media 1

Abstract

This text focuses essentially on capillary equilibria and capillary flows (visco-capillary hydrodynamics) in the presence of solids and in porous media. Several types of immiscible two-phase equilibria and flow systems are examined at various scales, in the presence of solid frames (cylindrical tubes and planar joints), and inside the pore space of porous soils, rocks, and other materials. In the case of porous media, this leads to studying capillary effects in unsaturated water flow, and immiscible two-phase flow, in homogeneous, heterogeneous, random and/or stratified porous media. Several problems of porous media hydrodynamics influenced by capillarity are treated in the last chapters of Vol. 1, and then, will be treated at more length, along with case studies, in the subsequent Vol. 2.