A numerical study on the effect of rolling friction on clogging of pores in particle-laden flows

TL;DR

This study uses direct numerical simulations to investigate how rolling friction influences pore clogging in particle-laden flows, revealing its significant role in particle jamming and permeability impairment.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled DEM-IBM simulation framework to analyze the impact of rolling resistance on pore clogging, a topic not well explored previously.

Findings

Rolling resistance affects particle jamming at pore entries.

DEM-IBM coupling accurately models pore-scale clogging.

Simulation results align with experimental validations.

Abstract

Particulate matter in a fluid injected into a porous reservoir impairs its permeability spatio-temporally due to pore clogging. As particle volume fraction increases near the pore throats, inter-particle contact mechanics determine their jamming and subsequent pore clogging behavior. During contact of particles submerged in a fluid, in addition to sliding friction, a rolling resistance develops due to a several micromechanical and hydrodynamic factors. A coefficient of rolling friction is often used as a lumped parameter to characterize particle rigidity, particle shape, lubrication and fluid mediated resistance, however its direct influence on the clogging behavior is not well studied in literature. We study the effect of rolling resistance on the clogging behavior of a dense suspension at pore scale using direct numerical simulations (DNS). A discrete element method (DEM) library is developed and coupled with an open-source immersed boundary method (IBM) based solver to perform pore and particle resolved simulations. Several 3D validations are presented for the DEM library and the DEM-IBM coupling and the effect of rolling resistance on clogging at a pore entry is studied.