Computational modeling of moving interfaces between fluid and porous medium domains

This paper presents a numerical procedure for computational modeling of moving interfaces between fluid and porous medium domains. To avoid the direct description of the interface boundary conditions at the interface between the fluid and porous medium domains, Darcy's law is used to simulate fluid flows in both the fluid and porous medium domains. For the purpose of effectively simulating the fluid flow using Darcy's law, the artificial permeability of the fluid domain is used to establish a permeability ratio between the artificial permeability in the fluid domain and the real permeability in the porous medium domain. Using the proposed permeability ratio, the ratio of fluid pressure gradient in the porous medium domain to that in the fluid domain can be appropriately simulated. To verify the proposed numerical procedure, analytical solutions have been derived for a benchmark problem, which can be simulated using the proposed numerical procedure. Comparison of the numerical solutions with the derived analytical solutions has demonstrated the correctness and accuracy of the proposed numerical procedure. Through applying the proposed numerical procedure to several examples associated with the fluid-porous medium interface propagation problems, the related numerical solutions have demonstrated that: (1) the proposed numerical procedure is capable of simulating the morphological instability of the fluid-porous medium interface in a coupled fluid flow-chemical dissolution system when the system is in a supercritical state; and (2) the permeability ratio can have a considerable effect on the evolved morphologies of the fluid-porous medium interface in the coupled fluid flow-chemical dissolution system. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.