Using Digital Imaging to Characterize Threshold Dynamic Parameters in Porous Media Based on Lattice Boltzmann Method

Digital images (DI) and lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) are used to characterize the threshold dynamic parameters of porous media. Two-dimensional representations of the porous structure are reconstructed from segmentation of digital images obtained from a series of tiny samples. The threshold pressure gradients and threshold Péclet numbers are researched on seven test samples by using LBM. Numerical results are in agreement with that obtained by integrating Darcy’s law. The results also indicate that fluids can flow through porous media only if the fluid force is large enough to overcome threshold pressure gradient in porous media. One synthetic case is used to further illustrate the applicability of the proposed technique. In addition, the dynamical rules in our model are local, therefore it can be run on parallel computers with well computational efficiency.