Are upwind techniques in multi-phase flow models necessary?

  • Authors:
  • C. -H. Park;N. BöTtcher;W. Wang;O. Kolditz

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Environmental Informatics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 DE, Germany and Department of Geothermal Resources, Korea Institute of Geoscience ...;Institute for Groundwater Management, TU Dresden, Helmholtzstr. 10, Dresden 01069, DE, Germany;Department of Environmental Informatics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 DE, Germany;Department of Environmental Informatics, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Permoserstr. 15, 04318 DE, Germany and Applied Environmental System Analysis, TU Dresden, Helmholtzstr. 1 ...

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Computational Physics
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Two alternatives of primary variables are compared for two-phase flow in heterogeneous media by solving fully established benchmarks. The first combination utilizes pressure of the wetting fluid and saturation of the non-wetting fluid as primary variables, while the second employs capillary pressure of the wetting fluid and pressure of the non-wetting fluid. While the standard Galerkin finite element method (SGFEM) is known to fail in the physical reproduction of two-phase flow in heterogeneous media (unless employing a fully upwind correction), the second scheme with capillary pressure as a primary variable without applying an upwind technique produces correct physical fluid behaviour in heterogeneous media, as observed from experiments.