The use of field theoretic methods for the study of flow in a heterogeneous porous medium

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The effects of heterogeneities on the steady state flow of a single fluid in a porous medium are examined. It is argued that incomplete knowledge of the permeability requires the use of a stochastic model of the system. It is shown that the problem may be written as a field theory which allows a perturbation series to be expressed by diagrammatic means. This allows the calculation of effective permeability, the mean pressure and the pressure variance. The method, as well as recovering familiar results, gives a formal means of improving the approximation and approaching more complex systems.