Three-dimensional simulation of single- and multiphase flow in roughness microchannels

To predict the behavior of reservoir fluids in porous media and their investigation at the macro level, it is necessary to study in details the hydrodynamic flows in porous media at the microscale from the point of view of the individual pore spaces, taking into account their structural features. This work is dedicated to the investigation of the periodic flow of a viscous incompressible fluid and dispersed systems in a flat channel of rectangular cross section with irregular side walls at a constant pressure drop. Using an efficient numerical approach based on the 3D boundary element method accelerated by the fast multipole method on heterogeneous computing architectures, the influence of irregularities of different sizes and shapes on the microchannel walls on the hydrodynamic flows of the viscous fluid flow and the emulsion droplet dynamics in a capillary micro-model of the porous medium has been studied. The results of this work can also be useful in the design of microfluidic devices.