DYNAMIC METHOD OF MEASURING COUPLING-COEFFICIENTS OF TRANSPORT-EQUATIONS OF 2-PHASE FLOW IN POROUS-MEDIA

The interaction between immiscible flowing phases can play a significant role in flow in porous media. Traditional relative permeability theory which does not consider the coupling effect between immiscible flowing phases, is perforce blinded to any dynamics in the flows. Therefore, the determination of the transport coefficients characterizing the coupling effect becomes crucial. Useful analytical or numerical solutions without restrictions have not been possible. Mathematical descriptions that encode the coupling effect for immiscible phase flowing in porous media become complex and unwieldy. Resort must be to experiment. A new experimental method of measuring coupling coefficients of two-phase flow in porous media is developed in this work; it is simply a combination of steady and dynamic state displacement experiments.