Critical behavior in porous media flow

Marcel Moura (1) , Knut J. Måløy (2) , Renaud Toussaint (3)

1 PoreLab [Oslo]
2 Department of Physics [Oslo]
3 IPGS - Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg

The intermittent burst dynamics during the slow drainage of a porous medium is studied experimentally. We have shown that this system satisfies a set of conditions known to be true for critical systems, such as intermittent activity with bursts extending over several time and length scales, self-similar macroscopic fractal structure and 1=f power spectrum. Additionally, we have verified a theoretically predicted scaling for the burst size distribution, previously assessed via numerical simulations. The observation of 1=f power spectra is new for porous media flows and, for specific boundary conditions, we notice the occurrence of a transition from 1=f to 1=f^2 scaling. An analytically integrable mathematical framework was employed to explain this behavior.

Mots clés: Multiphase flow; Hele-Shaw flow; Dynamic critical phenomena

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Hydrologie; Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]

Marcel Moura, Knut J. Måløy, Renaud Toussaint. Critical behavior in porous media flow. EPL - Europhysics Letters, 2017, 118 (1), ⟨10.1209/0295-5075/118/14004⟩. ⟨hal-01628931⟩